GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO VOL. I The following works by Sir Harry Johnston treat- ing of other parts of Africa outside the Congo basin, give additional information on questions of Ethnology, Languages, History, Botany, and Zoology dealt w-ith in George Grenfell and the Congo. THE RIVER CONGO FROM ITS MOUTH TO BOLOBO (2nd Edition, 1894, Sampson Low). THE LIFE OF LIVINGSTONE (George Philip). BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA (Methuen). THE COLONIZATION OF AFRICA BY ALIEN RACES (Cambridge University Press). THE UGANDA PROTECTORATE (Hutchinson). THE NILE QUEST (Alston Rivers). LIBERIA (Hutchinson). THE BANTU LANGUAGES : Encydopcsdia Brit- annica, loth and iith Editions {Tit?ies Office). Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/georgegrenfellco01john_0 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO A HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE CONGO INDEPENDENT STATE AND ADJOINING DISTRICTS OF CONGOLAND TOGETHER WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVE PEOPLES AND THEIR LANGUAGES, THE F AUNA AND I- LORA ; AND SIMILAR NOTES ON THE CAMEROONS AND THE ISLAND OF FERNANDO PO FOUNDED ON THE DIARIES AND RESEARCHES OF THE LATE Rev. GEORGE GRENFELL, b.m.s., f.r.g.s. RY SIR HARRY JOHNSTON G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Hon. D.Sc. Cambs. IN TWO VOLS. With 496 Illustrations from Photographs by the Revs. GEORGE GRENFELL and William Forfeitt, the Baptist Missionary Society, and oihers And from Drawings by the Author And 14 Maps by the late Rev. GEORGE GRENFELL, and also by \. W. ADDISON, r. GEO. soc, the last-named being based mainly on Grenefll's Surveys And on Additional Material contributed by Mr. E. TORDAY, the AUTHOR, MoNS. A. J. WAUTERS, the Publications of the CONGO STATE, THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, And THE BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETY VOL. I NEW YORK D. APPLETON & COMPANY 19 10 rritifed in Great Britain PREFATORY REMARKS, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, AND DEDICATION I WAS specially invited to write George Grenfell and the Cotigo by Mr. Alfred Henry Baynes, for some twenty-five years Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society. Mr. Baynes viewed with regret the possibility of the ethnographical and geographical in- formation collected by so many deceased members of the Baptist Mission being lost sight of whilst it might form a valuable contribution to our knowledge of West Central Africa. In accomplishing my task — one of unusual difficulty— I have received the most valuable assistance from the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt, B.M.S. Secretary on the Congo, and for many years a colleague and close personal friend of George Grenfell. Besides his individual researches he has opened up many avenues of information among his colleagues and friends, and has thus brought to light new languages and new aspects of Congo problems. Next in importance to Mr. Forfeitt's help has been that of Mr. Emil Torday, a Hungarian traveller well known for his lemarkable ethnographical collections and reports on the south-western section of the Congo basin. I cannot speak too appreciatively of Mr. Torday 's assistance, which has been rendered not only out of admiration for Grenfell's work as an explorer, but also with a desire to enable me to place before the world as large a collection as possible of precise information regarding native habits and customs on the Congo. Mr. Torday was able repeatedly to elucidate and amplify such of Grenfell's notes as might otherwise have remained obscure or inexplicable. Grenfell of course inserted these notes merely as a reminder to himself some day to deal with the question. Or he would sum up the heads of a subject in a few words, which would have remained almost unmeaning (unless he had lived to translate them) without the additional evidence that Mr. Torday was able to place at my disposal. Among the many cases and boxes containing Grenfell's manuscripts were stores of notes in handwriting and typewriting, the exact origin vi PREFATORY REMARKS of which was not always clear. Sometimes they have been identified as original researches on the part of Grenfell or his colleagues. In a few cases they were copied (I should think) from the missionary magazines of other societies, or from scientific publications in Belgium or Germany. Wherever such extracts could be defined as not being in any way connected with Grenfell's work, and as having received [P/wto by J. Russell ami Sons Jroiii " The Baptist Magazine," by permission of the Rez'. James Stuart, Editor.] 2. THE REV. LAWSON FORFEITT For many years the Baptist Missionary Society's Secretary on the Congo, and the official representative of the Mission to the Congo State Government. already independent publication, I have left them unused, or have merely referred to their existence. But where there was no means of identification, and a doubt existed as to whether the passage might not after all be a note compiled by Grenfell or one of his colleagues which had not already appeared in print, I have made use of this information. I have also inserted a very few photographs collected by Grenfell which may not have been taken either by himself or any of his colleagues. PREFATORY REMARKS vii and which are likewise without means of identification, though illus- trating points in which he was interested. As it was desirable to treat my subject widely, I have sought help in several directions for the purpose of adding to the general stock of information and illustrations collected by the Baptist Mission relative to the Congo, Cameroons, and Fernando P6. Mr. G. A. Boulenger of the British Museum has kindly enabled me to have drawings or photo- graphs made of Congo fish (collected by Baptist missionaries and others) which are typical of the fauna of the Congo basin or are new to science and specially associated with the collecting work of George Grenfell and the Rev. J. H. Weeks. The Baptist Missionary Society has of course placed entirely at my disposal its remarkable ethno- graphical collection. Mr. T. Athol Joyce of the British Museum has assisted both Mr. Torday and myself not only with information and advice, but in selecting for illustration objects of interest in the collections of the British Museum, mostly those contributed by Baptist missionaries. Baron Maurice de Rothschild and M. Trouessart (of the Natural History Museum, Paris) have supplied photographs and in- formation concerning the Forest Pig and the Okapi. Mr. R. H. Burne^ Assistant Curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and the authorities of that College, together with Professor D. J. Cunning- ham of Edinburgh University, have placed at my disposal interesting photographs of Congo skulls. Mr. S. P. Verner (formerly of the Ameri- can Presbyterian Congo Mission) and the Rev. M. Martin, still of that mission, have enlightened me on various points concerning the Kasai region. I have also received information in matters of botany and zoology from Colonel D. Prain and Dr. Otto Stapf of Kew Gardens, from Mr, R. I. Pocock of the Zoological Society, and from Messrs. E. E. Austen and Oldfield Thomas of the l?ritish Museum. Viscount Mountmorres has permitted me to quote from his Reports on the Congo State, and Mr. E. D. Morel has forwarded to me information on many subjects. Mr. George Babington Michell, H.B.M. Consul at Paris and until recently a Vice-Consul on the Congo, has placed his vocabularies of Congo languages at my disposal. Mr. G. L. Bates has done the same in regard to the Fan dialects. I have in addition to acknowledge the co-operation of Mr. Joseph Hawkes and Miss Hawkes of Birmingham (connections of the late Mr. Grenfell), who have contributed several photographs and notes to this book. Mr. Lewis (Birmingham) has kindly supplied the frontispiece of the first volume. I am considerably indebted to the Rev. William Forfeitt of Bopoto for his beautiful pictures of Congo people and scenery, and for his important additions to our knowledge of Congo languages. The Rev. Thomas Lewis of Western Congo- viii PREFATORY REMARKS land, has lent several illustrations. Mrs. W. H. Stapleton — herself a worker for many years in the Congo field — has allowed me the fullest access to her husband's unpublished philological work dealing with the languages of the Upper Congo ; the Rev. Theos. Parr, M.A., of Bolton, Lanes., has supplied much information concerning the native language of Fernando P6 ; Miss Emily Saker, the daughter of the late Alfred Saker, has rendered similar services regarding the languages of the Cameroons ; Mrs. Grenfell has placed her ethno- graphical collections at my disposal and has furnished the necessary explanation of them. I wish to tender my thanks to Dr. Scott Keltie, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, for advice and assistance in many direc- tions, and equally so to Mr. Edward Heawood, the Librarian of that Society. Mr. J. W. Addison's work on the maps has been much more than the execution of a commission on ordinary business lines. He has thrown into this task an amount of research and unrecompensed labour for which all interested in African geography should be grateful. The maps also owe much to the writings and to information specially furnished by the great Belgian geographer Mons. A. J. Wauters and by M. Louis Goffin, chief engineer of the Congo Railway. I am also indebted to the Secretariat of the Interior of the Congo Independent State for the gift of maps and publications of the State. I have made frequent references to the writings and researches (published and unpublished) of the late Dr. Holman Bentley, as I feel sure he would have wished me to do in any comprehensive survey of the Congo. If I may seem here and there to have quoted him unduly it has been because he and I were making use on equal terms of the same sources of information — Grenfell's original journal and letters. As far as possible I have left untouched the individual researches of Dr. Bentley himself. No one who wishes to be completely acquainted with Congo questions, scientific and ethical, can do without such works of reference as the Dictionary and Gravimar of the Kongo Language and the two books on Congo travel which Dr. Bentley published respectively in 1887 and 1900. I have used a good deal of my own material in this book, have produced drawings and photographs of my own, not hitherto published, to illustrate the scenery of Fernando P6, the Cameroons, and the western Congo. In a few cases, certain of these sketches appeared in the Graphic and in my own book on the River Congo twenty to twenty- three years ago ; but in reproducing them I have gone back to the original drawings. Qui s excuse, s accuse : I trust that this rather lengthy explanation PREFATORY REMARKS IX may not distract the reader from the main conclusion that the greater part of this book, in illustrations as in text, is new and original matter, the personal work of George Grenfell, in the first place ; of Lawson Forfeitt, Emil Torday, and myself in a secondary degree. I would venture to dedicate this work to the Right Hon. Sir George Taubman Goldie, P.C, K.C.m.g., President of the Royal Geographical Society, not only as the expression of a long-standing friendship on my part, but because George Grenfell, had he lived, would certainly have wished to associate the publication of his studies with the official rejsresentative of a society that he found so prompt to accord him encouragement and recognition in his geographical research. H. H. JOHNSTON. Poling, May, 1908. ERRATUM et ADDENDUM Erratum. — On page 75, twelve lines from the bottom, owing should be read instead of owning. Addendum. — When some months ago the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt placed in my hands photographs by the Rev. K. J. Pettersen {and by the deceased discoverer, the late Rev. E. Domenjoz) of the ancient Portuguese inscriptions on the rocks or cliffs above Matadi, near the Mpozo River, I sent examples of these photographs to an official in Lisbon connected with the Royal Academy of Portugal, hoping that he might be able to obtain for me a correct interpretation. Unfortunately the letter and its enclosures were despatched only a few days before the assassination of the late King and the Crown Prince, and either never reached their destination or were overlooked in the interruption of ordinary affairs which followed those sad events. Since then, the Rev. Thomas Lewis, B. M.S., submitted similar photographs to the inspection of the Royal Geographical Society. In the opinion of the Librarian, Mr. Edward Heawood, and in that of the veteran geographer of Africa, Mr. E. G. Ravenstein, the inscrip- tions relate to the second expedition to the Congo, commanded by Uiogo Cam or Cao in 1485. (An allusion to this second expedition of Cam's was accidentally omitted by me in my brief enumeration of the leading events of early Congo history on page 70.) Mr. Heawood deciphers the inscription in illustration 32 as follows: " Aqy chegaram os navios do {next ivord undecipherable) Rey Dom Joam ho seg° de Portugall : D° Caao : P° Ans P" Dacosta — (among other names to the right) — Alvaro Pirez, Pero Escolar, Joao de Santiago, Joiio Alves, Diogo Pinero, Gonzalo Alvares, Antam." [Joam or Joao is mostly abbreviated to J°. Antam is equivalent to Antao, Anton, or Antonio. In old Portuguese the nasal termina- tion now usually rendered by ao was frequently spelt ani.'\ This can be translated (as Mr. Hea- wood points out) : " Here arrived the ships of the (? fleet) of the King Dom John the Second of Portugal: Diogo Cao, Pedro Anes, Pedro da Costa, etc." [Vide TJie Geograpltieal Jouj-nal, June 1908, pp. 590 and 615.] The Rev. Thomas Lewis points out in his paper on "The Old Kingdom of Kongo" {The Geographical Journal, June 1908) that the Portuguese mariners of Diogo Cam's expedition in 1485 must have displayed extraordinary daring, resolution, and skill in steering, rowing, warp- ing, hauling their ship past the whirlpools of Hell's Cauldron, the terrific force of the current, and the dangerous rocks above Matadi, to the mouth of the Mpozo River, where they found anchorage in a quiet re.ich of water, and whence they climbed the rocks to inscribe a record of their heroic feat — a record which was to remain entirely overlooked in geographical circles until 1908, though it was discovered about 1900 by the late Mr. E. Domenjoz, a Swiss missionary in the service of the (English) Congo-Balolo Mission. A portrait of Mr. Domenjoz is given on p. 824. II. H. J. ORTHOGRAPHY THE spelling of African names in this work is practically that in use by the Royal Geo- graphical Society, the Indian Government, etc. The consonants have mostly their English value, the vowels are as in German or Italian- No consonant is doubled unless it is doubly pronounced. N is pronounced like ng in " ring," " ringing." O is pronounced like o in " bone " ; 6 like o in " store " ; unaccented o as in " not." For the accurate transcription of languages, I prefer to use the system of Lepsius, with very slight modern modifications. This will be found duly explained in the chapter dealing with the Languages of the Congo and Cameroons. It does not differ materially from the orthography used for Geographical names. With regard to my rendering of the native names of Rivers, Lakes, Mountains, Towns, Chiefs, and Tribes, I have naturally aimed at a correct transcrip- tion of the native pronunciation. Wherever this could not be ascertained by reference to the notes of Grenfell, Bentley (whom I have mostly followed, because I know his hearing of native speech to have been very accurate), or by my own personal experience in western, north-eastern, or south-eastern Congoland, I have accepted the official version of the Congo State. The last- named does not generally differ from the transliteration of Grenfell and Bentley, and is usually much more correct (as regards correspondence with native pronunciation and etymology) than the somewhat haphazard spelling adopted by most French authorities (excepting Mons. A. Chevalier). But in some cases I find myself in disaccord with the Congolese cartographers, as for example over the name Mubangi. Not only do Grenfell and all the Baptist missionaries write this word " Mubangi," but when in Uganda or north-east Congoland I have discussed the point with Bangala soldiers, etc., from the lower Mubangi they pronounced thus the name of that great river in its lowermost course. Nowhere have I heard the rendering " Ubanghi." This, like not a few official titles of places in the Congo basin, is due to a Swahili corruption. Stanley and most of the earlier pioneers knew no other African speech than Swahili, and heard all native place names through Swahili ears, an annoying thing to those who take an interest in the correct rendering of the Bantu languages. " Ubangi," " Ubanghi," " Mbangi," have no meaning to a native, any more than " Upoto" for Bopoto. There is another point that requires some explanation. The reader may notice that place or river names are sometimes written with an /, sometimes with an r, and at others with a d. (Thus we have Dua, Rua, Lua ; Mbidizi or Mbirizi ; Rubi and Lubi ; Sankulu and (less correctly) Sankuru ; Irebu and Ilebo. ) This is due to the inability of most Bantu negroes to distinguish between r/, r, and / in their pronunciation. At the same time, among the Bantu of the Congo it must be admitted that r is the least common form of these Unguals. On the other hand, r predominates in some of the dialects of South-West Africa, and especially in the mouths of the Zanzibari negroes or Arabs. Consequently many Geographical names are established by long use with an "r" pronunciation which is quite foreign to local speech. As the point matters less than the bother of changing established orthography, I have often left these words unaltered and have preferred to go on using " Sankuru" instead of changing it to Sankulu. There is occasional variation in this book and its maps as to the title of the Congo State. This is usually given in its full correct form as the "Congo Independent State." But in some places — for the sake of brevity — " Congo State," and in others — from oversight — " Congo Free State" is used. Who is responsible for this last incorrect rendering of the official title I do not know, but it has obtained such a hold in our speech that it is difficult to eradicate it. H. H. J. CONTENTS OF VOL. CHAPTER I Gkorge Gkenfell ..... CHAPTER II Fernando P6 : 1840-58 .... CHAPTER III The Cameroons : 1845-87 CHAPTER IV Modern Missionary Pioneers in Congoland . CHAPTER V The Modern History of the Congo CHAPTER VI San Salvador and Stanley Pool CHAPTER VII Grenfell's First Journey Beyond Stanley Pool CHAPTER VIII The Discovery of the Mubangi CHAPTER IX The Rivers of Central Congoland CHAPTER X Times of Uncertainty .... CHAPTER XI The Lunda Expedition Xll CONTENTS CHAPTER XII PAGE Missionary Vicissitudes . . . . . . . 221 CHAPTER XIII The River Congo ........ 265 CHAPTER XIV The Northern Truiutaries ...... 326 CHAPTER XV The Journey to the Undiscovered Bourne . . . -372 CHAPTER XVI CoNGOLAND Before the White Man Ruled . . . . 382 CHAPTER XVII History of the Congo State : I. Its Foundation . . . 408 CHAPTER XVIII History of the Congo State: II. The Arab War . . 424 CHAPTER XIX History of the Congo State: III. Advance to the Nile and Later Developments . . . . . . 435 CHAPTER XX The Misdeeds, Mistakes, and Achievemenjs of the Congo St.\te 445 Appendix I. concessionnaire companies in the basin of the congo 476 II. extracts from private letters written by grenfell IN 1902 and 1903 . . . . . 480 HI. viscount mountmorres and the CONGO independent STATE ....... 484 IV. MONS. LOUIS GOFFIN AND TFIE SUBJECT OF FORCED LABOUR 486 V. RECORD OF SCIENTIFIC WORK, ETC., ACCOMPLISHED BY THE CONGO STATE . . . . . . 49I VI. WATERWAYS AND RAILWAYS ..... 493 VII. ARMY SERVICE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION . . . 494 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS George Grenfell . ... 2. The Rev. Lawson Forfeitt. For many years the Baptist Missionary Society's Secretary on the Congo, and the official representative of the Mission to the Congo State Government . 3. Grenfell in 1878, starting with first B.M.S. mission to San Salvador, kingdom of Kongo . . ... 4. Specimen page of Grenfell's notes on journey up the Lulongo-Maringa in 1885 : distances in hours 5. Bolobo station ; Grenfell's home on the Upper Congo for sixteen years 6. A missionary's house at Bolengi, Upper Congo . . ... 7. Brick-making at Bopoto, an element in " sound material civilization " 8. Native blacksmiths trained at the Baptist Mission on the Upper Congo 9. B.M.S.S. Peace (on the northern Congo near Stanley Falls). The Peace was the steamer in which Grenfell made his principal exploring journeys 10. The Rev. John Clarke, a pioneer African philologist and missionary in Fernando P6 . . ... 1 1. Clarence (or Santa Isabel) Peak, Fernando P6 — about 10,000 feet in altitude . 12. A Bube or indigenous native of Fernando P6 13. The Cameroons Mountains seen from near Fernando P6 . ... 14. A typical Duala gentleman of the olden time (about 1874) — Shark Dido of Dido Town, Cameroons, son of the Chief Dido herein referred to . . . 15. Carved Duala stool belonging to a chief . 16. The Cameroons Mountains and the loca- tion of Ambas Bay settlement of Victoria : seen from Mondole Island . 17 Alfred Saker : from a photograph taken about 1873 . ... 18. The Manenguba Mountains, north-west of Cameroons River, as observed by the Author in 1886 . ... 19. The Little Cameroons Peak . 20. Tree-ferns on the Cameroons Mountain (the pass named by Burton " Fern Gate ") . SOURCE PAGE From a photograph by Mr. Thomas Lewis, of Birmingham Frontispiece From a photograph lent bv Rev. James Stuart . . . vi Photograph taken by T. J. Comber 3 Photograph by Grenfell 7 9 II Photograph by Rev. William Forfeitt 13 Photograph by Grenfell . . 15 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 19 From a sketch by Sir Harry Johnston 21 25 28 Photograph lent by Miss Emily Saker 29 Photograph lent by Rev. Lawson Forfeitt . . . . 31 From a painting by Sir Harry John- ston . . • • 39 42 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . . 44 >. >> !. • • 4,S 47 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NO. TITLE SOURCE PAGE 21. Mount Victoria, the Hig-h Peak of the Cameroons, about 13,500 feet in altitude. In the foreground is a great "stream" of lava and scoriae . . . Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . . 49 22. Bell Town Beach, Duala, Cameroons River, 1886 . ... ,, M • • 53 23. King "Bell" of Cameroons: taken about 1874 . . ... Photograph lent by Miss Emilj' Saker 56 24. Lissochiliis gi«anteus orchids, ten to fifteen feet high, growing on the Cameroons River . . ... Sketch b}' Sir Harry Johnston . . 57 25. The Duala shore ("Bell Town beach") in 1907 . . ... Photograph lent by the Basel Mission 59 26. The remaining Baptist mission station at Sopo, in the Cameroons (under native missionaries) . ... ,, ,, ,,60 27. The highest summit of the Cameroons (sketched by the present writer in 1886) From sketch bj- Sir Harry Johnston 61 28. Baobab tree at San Salvador, showing initials of Lieut. Grand}-, 1873, and of Comber and Grenfell carved in 1878 . Photograph b}' Rev. H. Ross Phillips 64 29. Tungwa, reached by Grenfell and Comber in 1878. (Here Comber was wounded by a bullet in 1880) . . . Photograph by Grenfell . 65 30. Native musicians at Tungwa, 1878 . . ,, ,, ,, . . 67 31. Portuguese inscription on rocks above Matadi, near Mpozo River: inscribed by Diogo Cam's Second Expedition in 1485 Photograph by Rev. K. J. Pettersen 71 32. Principal inscription of Diogo Cam's Second Expedition of 1485 (rocks near Matadi and Mpozo River), giving names of chief persons in expedition . . ,, ,, ,, 72 33. Ruins of the convent, San Salvador, built by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century . . ... Photograph by Grenfell . . 73 34. A map of the Congo regions published at Amsterdam in 1733 in the Atlas of Guillaume de I'lsle (Publishers, Jan Covens and Corneille Mortier). This represents the utmost information ever given to the world b}' the Portuguese, Italian, French, and Flemish explorers (mainly missionaries) down to the middle of the eighteenth centur}' ... . . ... 79 35. Tree under which Livingstone's heart was . buried at the village of Chitambo . . Photograph by Captain Poulett Weatherley . ' . . .81 36. Image of Christ found at San Salvador, used as a fetish. Some two or three hundred years old . . . Photograph supplied bj' the Baptist Mission from object in their col- lections . . . . 86 37. Ruins of chancel arch of ancient Portu- guese cathedral at San Salvador . , Photograph by Grenfell . . 88 38. A group of Congo pioneers at Musuko — (left to right) Hartland, Crudgington, Comber, Rlr. , a trader, Mr. Greshoff (the agent of the Dutch house), Mrs. Grenfell, and Holman Bentley .,,,>>> . • 89 39. The Mbidizi or Mbirizi River below the Arthington Falls . ... Photograph by Rev. Thomas Lewis 92 40. The shore of Leopoldville, in 1883. Sketch by the author . ... Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . . 93 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv NO. 41- After TITLE journey in B. M.S.S. Peace, Paul PAGE Crampel, the famous French explorer, who made important discoveries in the basin of the Sanga, dedicated his map of the Cameroons - Congo hinterland to Grenfell. Crampel was assisted by Grenfell to ascend the Mubangi. He was the first explorer to penetrate from the Congo basin to that of Lake Chad, and was killed in Baghirmi in 1890 42. The wooded banks of the Congo between Stanley Pool and the Kwa junction, rising to about 800 feet above stream- level . . ... 43. The rocky points or reefs which stretch out into the Congo or Kasai, and often cause steamers to come to grief . 44. Lone Island, where the Congo broadens, near Chumbiri . ... 45. A B. M.S. house at Lukolela : station founded by Grenfell in 1885 46. Bapulula, a pilot on the Peace steamer (a Mongata man, recruited after Grenfell's first voyage) . ... 47. An Ngumba house at Bolobo, belonging to Chief Ibaka (showing enemies' skulls on roof) . . ... 48. Necklace of human eeth from the northern Congo . . ... 49. A fleet of canoe dwellings at Isangi, mouth of Lomami River, 1891. (In the days of the early Arab troubles many of the Lomami people took to living in canoes, a practice formerly adopted for trading purposes) . ... 50. A pot from the upper Mubangi — red and blue-grey . ... 51. Grenfell's " Calamus " palm, in two stages of growth. (This climbing palm is really AiicistropliyUum sccundifioruin. It is found all over the Congo basin, growing to heights of two and three hundred feet) 52. Scene typical of flood-time on the river, water up to the houses 53. Young form of Ancistrophyllum sccundi- floriim climbing palm. (Beginning like this, the Ancistropliylhim gradually de- velops barbed hooks and segmented fronds, and scrambles to the top of the highest trees) . ... 54 The red fruits and seed of the climbing AncistrophyUiiui palm. The seeds are sometimes strung together as necklaces. The fruit is slightly sweet, and edible . 55. (i) Batwa bow, arrows, and quiver from the Juapa region. (2) A " wooden club " or cleaver from the upper Juapa 56. German pioneers of Congo exploration photographed at Stanley Pool — (begin- ning on left, Von Francois, Wissmann, Wolf, and Hans Muller)' 57. A group of Baluba natives (von Wiss- mann's expedition) 99 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 103 • 105 . no Photograph by Grenfell 1! )» >> >' Photograph by Grenfell 112 "3 119 )> '> >' Photograph from Grenfell's specimen 1 22 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 126 133 Drawing by Sir Harry Johnston . 136 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 137 Drawing by Sir Harry Johnston . 141 142 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 144 ■ 147 . 148 xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NO. TITLE 58. The lower Kwango River 59. The Saiikurii River near Lusambo. Fish traps and fish weirs in the foreground . 60. Kasai cloth of raised pile. Made from raphia "bast" or fibre (the substance of the leaflets of the young fronds) 61. A typical Muyanzi (a sawyer of the Mission at Bolobo). 1 he Bayanzi or Babangi range from the lower Kasai to the main Congo and the Mubangi con- fluence . . ... 62. (1) Native fetish from the southern part of the cataract region of the Congo. The strings tied round the neck are offerings for benefits received. (2) Image of St. Christopher and the Infant Christ, found in the San Salvador district — possibly some two or three hundred years old. Has been used as a fetish. Similar types to (i) and (2) are found among the Kioko and Bashilange . ... 63. Bakuba axes of wrought iron, from the Kasai-Sankuru. These are carried be- fore a chief as a sign of authority (Grenfell). The Bakuba and Baluba are great iron-workers 64. A specimen of Luba pottery : a water- cooler from Luluabourg (Lulua River) . 65. Cloth of raised pile from the Bakuba country (Sankuru River) 66. Congo pioneers — (beginning on left, lower rank) Dr. A. Sims, Grenfell, Cap- tain Deane ; (right hand, upper rank) Michael Richards, A. Billington, J. G. Brown . . ... 67. The " Upside-down fish " — Euiropius lati- ceps, from Lake Leopold II ; where it sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is considered very good eating b}' the natives . . ... 68. Head of hippopotamus shot by Grenfell . 69. Major Barttelot and a section of the Emin Pasha expedition off Lukolela, Upper Congo . . ... 70. Rev. W. Holman Bentley, B.MS., d.d. Glasgow ; author of Kongo Dictionary and Grammar . ... 71. Cloth of raised pile from Ntomba district 72. Prepared manioc roots {k7i'a>iga), sugar- cane, etc. A school feast on the Upper Congo . . ... 73. Citharinus congicus, a fish much eaten by the natives of Stanley Pool and the Llpper Congo. [This species, about 12 to 15 inches long, is smoked, and becomes an important article in native commerce.] Its name, and that of other Citharini, is Lobolio among the Bayanzi 74. Herbert \\'ard and his section of the Emin Pasha relief expedition on the Congo in canoes . . ... SOLRCE PAGE Pilotograph by Grenfell . . 152 Photograph bj- E. Tordaj- . • '54 ,. . • 157 Photograph by Grenfell . • '59 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 161 • '62 Photograph by Torda}- . . 163 „ . . '64 Photograph by Rev. R. D. Darby. 166 Photograph lent by Mr. G. A. Boulenger, British Museum . 168 Photograph by Grenfell . .169 Photograph lent by Baptist Mission 173 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 175 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 177 Drawn from specimen in British Museum . . . . 178 Photograph by Grenfell . . 180 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii NO. TITLE 75. Mfutila, the late King of Koiig-o ; suc- ceeded his father at San Salvador in 1892 76. Chiefs and noblemen at San Salvador, Kingdom of Kongo 77. A group of Baptist missionaries (including Mr. and Mrs. Grenfell) at the launching of the Goodnnll . ... 78. Captain Gorin riding an ox on the Lunda Expedition . ... 79. Facsimile of King Leopold's commission to the Rev. George Grenfell to serve as plenipotentiary on the Frontier Delimita- tion Commission for the determination of the frontier between Portugal and the Congo State . ... 80. M. Froment on the Lunda expedition 81. Hammock-travelling on the Lunda expedi- tion . . ... 82. The Kwango River seen from the Fort of Popokabaka . ... 83. TheKiamvo, Mwene-Puto-Kasongo (centre figure) ; from a photograph taken by P^re Butaye in 1906 84. Capt. Drag Lehrmann 85. Kwango River from beach near Popokabaka 86. Grenfell's tent on Lunda expedition . 87. A metallophone from the Kongo-Kwango region, called Mbiti by the natives 88. In the Berthon boat on the Kwango River, Lunda expedition 89. Franz Josef Falls of the Kwango River, discovered by the Austrian explorer von Mechow, 1880 . ... 90. Baholo people, upper Kwango 91. Rapids of the Kwango 92. Major and Mme. Sarmento, Lunda expedi- tion . . ... 93. The members of the Lunda Delimitation Commission ; also Mme. Sarmento and Mrs. Grenfell . ... 94. Hills bordering Wamba Valley 95. Crossing Kwilu River, Lunda expedition . 96. Submerged bridge, Kwilu River 97. Hungry porters on the Lunda expedition returning to Angola 98. Grenfell riding an ox, Lunda expedition . 99. Grenfell's native attendants on the Lunda expedition . ... 100. The sketch survey of the Portuguese- Congo boundary, etc., signed by the three Commissioners 101. The grave of Rev. F. R. Oram at Bopoto, Northern Congo 102. Rev. Albert Wherrett's grave at Yakusu, Stanley Falls . ... 103. Rev. T. J. Comber at Arthington . 104. Rev. J. Pinnock and his family. (Mr. Pinnock is a West Indian, and son of the Rev. J. Pinnock, a pioneer in the Cameroons. Mr. Pinnock himself served for some years in the Cameroons) l.—b SOURCE Photograph by Grenfell PAGE . 181 , 182 Photograph lent by Pt?re Butaye Photog-raph by Grenfell Photographed by Grenfell's camera 183 Photograph by Grenfell . . 187 189 190 191 193 195 196 198 199 201 203 204 205 206 209 210 211 212 213 216 217 219 . To face page 220 Photo by William Forfeitt . .221 Photograph by Grenfell 222 223 225 xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NO. TITLE 105. The station of New Underhill on the Lower Cong-o, at the commencement of the cataract reg'ion . ... 106. A house of the B.M.S. at Lukolela, Western Equatorial Congo 107. A framework made by the natives of the western Congo for protecting the face against mosquitoes and sand-flies. A hght cloth is placed over the wicker- work mask . ... 108. Leopard killed on Upper Congo by Rev. W. H. Stapleton. (Mr. Stapleton is in left-hand corner of the picture) 109. Locust devouring a mouse . 1 10. A flash of lightning on the Upper Congo 111. The Mission school at Bolobo 112. Missionary going on tour of inspection in house-boat, Upper Congo 113. Patience Grenfell and her school-children at Yakusu . ... 114. Crinum lilies of the Upper Congo . 115. Camoensia maxima 116. Protopterus dolloi, the Lung-fish of the Upper Congo . ... 117. The Mission laundry man, Bopoto . 118. A sewing class at Bopoto 119. Mrs. Grenfell's sewing class, Bolobo 120. " How they look when they first come to the Mission " . . . . 121. " After six months " 122. The garden of a B.M.S. station, Upper Congo . . ... 123. Brick-makers at B.M.S. station, Yakusu 124. Portuguese Roman Catholic Mission sta- tion, Malanje, Portuguese Congo 125. Scholars at a Portuguese Roman Catholic Mission station, Portuguese Congo 126. Man and woman of the Ngombe tribe, adherents of the Baptist Mission, Bo- poto . . ... 127. Natives streaming down to welcome the Mission steamer at Yakusu, Upper Congo . . ... 128. The Peace damaged in a storm 129. The boys who helped to put the Peace right again . ... 130. The Good^vill steamer at Bolobo 131. Bungudi, the Mission engineer, and his wife (Bungudi was a Bateke boy trained by Grenfell) . ... 132. Lokongi, a Mission teacher at Bolobo 133. Grenfell, Lawson Forfeitt, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis at San Salvador, 1893 134. Map of Banana Point, at the north side of the Congo mouth 135. Banana Point, at the mouth of the Congo 136. The estuarine Congo near its mouth 137. Skin of python, 25 ft. long, 2 ft. 7 in. broad when dry, killed at Ngangila, near Matadi. . . . . SOURCE PAGE Photograph by Rev. William Forfeitt 227 Photograph by Grenfell . . 229 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 230 Photograph by Grenfell . . 231 Photograph lent by Lavi'son Forfeitt 233 Photograph by William F"orfeitt . 234 Photograph by Grenfell . . 235 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 237 Photograph by Grenfell . . 239 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 242 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 243 Photo lent by Mr. G. A. Boulenger 244 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 245 >, • . 246 Photograph by Grenfell . . 247 „ „ . ■ 248 „ „ • • 248 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 249 „ -> . • 250 Photograph by Grenfell . -251 >> .1 >> • • 252 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 253 Photograph by Grenfell . . 255 ,, „ . • 257 „ . • 258 ,, • • 259 • • 263 Photograph by Lewis's camera . 265 . 266 Photograph by Grenfell . . 267 From a picture by Sir Harryjohnston 268 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 269 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix NO. TITLE 138. Looking' down the Conj^o towards Boma, from Underhill . . . . 139. Old Underbill (Tiinduwa) and Hell's Caul- dron . . ... 140. Looking- down the Congo from Vivi westwards . . . . 141. A steamer ascending^ the Lower Congo heading; for the port of Matadi 142. The River Congo above Vivi, near (i.e. below) the first Fall 143. General view of the Yalala Falls 144. Falls of Congo at Isangila : sketch by the Author . ... 145. A Congo cataract : sketch by the Author 146. The site of Manyang-a, central cataract region . . ... 147. Scenery in the cataract region of the Congo (south of the river) 14S. Nzeke Rapids, the last of the Livingstone Falls, near Vivi . ... 149. View of Congo in the cataract reg^ion near Stanley Pool 150. An island off Kinshasa on Stanley Pool, 1883 . . . . . 151. Dover Cliffs, Stanley Pool . 152. Last relics of the ancient Congo plateau — hills ling-ering on the western bank of the Upper Congo, near Bolobo 153. Borassus palms on the Upper Cong-o 154. View on the Upper Congo, near Bopoto, to show islands . ... 155. View down the Congo at Bopoto from a mission house . ... 156. On the banks of the Cong-o near Bvvemba 157. The banks of the Congo at Yalemba, east of the Aruwimi confluence . 158. Borassus palms on an island of the Upper Congo . ... 159. The snags that wreck the steamers 160. The Mission steamer Goodwill hovi on at Yakusu . ... 161. The village of Lisala, near Bopoto. 162. The Chopo Falls, near the Lindi confluence 163. Off Yakusu beach . ... 164. A corner of Stanley Falls 165. The railway line along the Lualaba-Congo near Ponthierville, opposite the mouth of the Lilu River 166. Saw-mills on the railway between Stanley Falls and Ponthierville 167. A train on the railway from Stanley Falls to Ponthierville . ... 168. A Congo State station between Stanley Falls and Ponthierville 169. Lualaba-Congo above Stanley Falls 170. Lualaba-Congo in the vicinity of Nyangwe 171. A state canoe on the Lualaba-Congo, between Ponthierville and Nyangwe . SOL-RCE PAGE Photograph by Grenfell . . 270 >> II .1 • • 272 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 273 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 275 Photograph by Rev. K. J. Pettersen 276 Photograph by Commander Purey- Cust, R.N. . . . 277 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 278 ■ 279 ,, ,, ,, . 280 Photograph by Rev. K. J. Pettersen 281 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 284 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 285 Photograph by Grenfell . . 286 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 288 • 289 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 290 ., „ „ • 291 M • 292 >. ., • 293 Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 294 M ., • 295 Photograph by Grenfell . . 297 Photo by Wm. Forfeitt . . 301 M ,, • • Photograph by Grenfell . . 305 Photo by William Forfeitt . . 306 Photograph by Rev. J. Howell . 307 308 309 3H Photograph by Grenfell . . 312 . • 3'3 Photograph by Rev. H. Sutton-Smith 314 XX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NO. TITLE 172. On Lake Baiig'weulu 173- Johnston Falls, Luapula River 174. Female of the Red Forest Buffalo {Bos caffer iiainis), from the forest region of South-Central Congoland (shot on one of Grenfell's expeditions) 175. Red River Hogf from South-Central Cong^oland . ... 1 76. An Arab trader in North-East Cong-oland (originally from Zanzibar) 177. A wooden whistle from the west Tangan- yika coast . ... 178. Eiitropius g'renfelli, a fish of the Upper Congo discovered by Grenfell. (This is a much smaller form than the extra- ordinary E. laticeps) 179. The post of Avakubi, looking down the Aruwimi River, across the island in front of the station. (It was near Avakubi that Grenfell wished to found a station) . ... 180. Rev. W. H. Stapleton's mission house at Sargent Station, Yakusu 181. A chapel built by native Mission boys 182. Two Bambute Pygmies, Azimbamboli and Abumbuku . ... 183. The village of the Banal3a colony of time-expired soldiers of the Congo State . . ... 184. Aruwimi River above the lowest rapids . 185. Pango rapids of Aruwimi 186. A village of the Bwela countr}' behind Bopoto. . ... 187. A village of the interior behind Bopoto. (Note ant-hill in the background with man standing on top) 188. The Bongo or Broad-horned Tragelaph (from a photograph of a specimen killed on the north-eastern Congo). The brightly contrasted redand whitestriped skin of this splendid beast is much in favour amongst the natives of the Forest region for bandoliers, girdles, etc., vieing in their favour with that of the Okapi . ... 189. The finest specimen extant of a male Okapi, set up in the Paris Natural History Museum : from the neighbour- hood of Avakubi 190. An adult male of the black Forest Pig [Hylorliwnis) of North-East Congoland and Equatorial East Africa : from one of the specimens obtained by Baron Maurice de Rothschild 191. A chimpanzi from the Bateke country north of Stanley Pool : photograph by Grenfell at Brazzaville SOURCE PAGE Photograph by Captain Poulett Weatherley . . • 3'5 ,. ., 316 Photograph by Grenfell . . 320 >, • • 321 -> ■ ■ 322 From a specimen in the Tervueren Museum . ... 323 Photographed from specimen in British Museum . . . 324 Photograph hy Grenfell . . 327 >, >. • • 329 M i» )» • • 33^ ,, • • 332 i> )> !i • • 334 >i ti i> • ■ 335 • . 336 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 338 • 339 • 341 Photograph lent by M. Trouessart, Natural Historj' Museum, Paris. 342 Photograph lent bv Baron Maurice de Rothschild . . . 343 Photograph by Grenfell . . 345 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi NO. TITLE 192. Gnathoncinus ibis, a fish of the Miibangi River . . ... 193. A thief s weapon from Banalj-a, Aruvvimi : used for stealing' goats, to simulate a leopard's claws, and sometimes a woman's breast is torn off by this as a punishment . . . . 194. Typical Forest negroes of the Aruwimi (one of them a Mission boy) 195. Basoko people . ... 196. A native chief from the Bwela district behind Bopoto and his little son (a scholar at the Mission school). Note: Chief is wearing a bandolier of the Bongo Tragelaph skin 197. Examples of the Mongwandi tribe from the upper Mongala River. (The Mong- wandi are allied to the Sango of the Mubangi) . ... 198. A tom-tom drum from the Baloi country, lower Mubangi . ... 199. Chrysichthys ornatus, a fish of the Mu- bangi and northern Congo : collected by Rev. J. H. Weeks, B.M.S. 200. A harp from the Sango people of Yakoma, on the upper Mubangi 201. Head of a male black Forest Pig {Hylo- choerus) . ... 202. Small twin receptacle from the lower Mubangi ; black, varnished with copal 203. A photograph of George Grenfell, taken January 1906, six months before his death . . ... 204. The house at Yalemba where Grenfell lived prior to his death 205. Grenfell's grave at Basoko . 206. An Arab camp, Lomami River, where the incidents referred to by Grenfell (on p. 375) occurred . ... 207. Rubber victims. Natives brought to the Baptist Mission for treatment after outrages by agents of concessiomiaire companies . ... 208. Grenfell's signature 2og. The surroundings of Grenfell's house at Bolobo . , ... 210. Bolobo chiefs Mungulu and Mukoko 211. Specimen of page from Grenfell's diary written in pencil . ... 212. Ibaka, the principal chief of Bolobo in the 'eighties of the last century : sketched by Sir Harry Johnston in 1883 . . . . . 213- Ngoie, a chief of Bolobo (1894), much referred to in Grenfell's diaries (see pp. 388-9) . ... 214. B.M.S. Mission church at Bolobo . 215. Baptist Mission church, San Salvador SOURCE PAGE Photograph lent by Mr. G. A. Boulenger . ... 349 Photograph by the Baptist Mission 351 Photograph by Grenfell . . 353 i> >> II • • 355 »> »> »> • • 357 Photograph by William Forfeit! . 360 Photograph lent by Mr. Torday . 361 Photograph lent by Mr. G. A. Boulenger . ... 362 . 367 Photograph lent by Baron Maurice de Rothschild . . . 369 Photo lent by Mr. Torday . . 371 . 372 Photograph by Rev. J. Howell . 373 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 374 Photograph by Grenfell , . 375 Photograph by a Baptist Missionary 379 381 Photograph by Grenfell . . 383 .1 . • 385 . . 387 . 389 Photograph by Grenfell . . 390 >> >i 1 1 • ■ 393 Photograph by Rev. Thos. Lewis . 394 xxii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS NO. TITLE SOURCE PAGE 216. Henrique de Carvalho Station in Eastern Angola: founded in 1884 to protect Port- ug'uese traders with the Lunda country Photograph by Grenfell . . 396 217. Captain Coquilhat and Matabwiki, Chief of Bangahi {circa 1890) ...,,,,„ . . 400 218. A big canoe on the Upper Congo, of the type that used to carr}' slaves from the Lulongo to the Mubangi . . 401 219. Ngombe people between the north Congo : . andthetributariesoftheMongalaRiver: - - much given to cannibalism until recently Photograph by William Forfeitt . 404 220. A mask worn by members of a Baluba brotherhood in ceremonial dances : Tor- day Collection . ... Photograph by Torday . . 407 221. The Atlantic aspect of the beach at Banana Point, Congo mouth. (Banana Point, the main seaport of the Belgian Congo, was not acquired by the State until 1S85) . ... Photograph by Grenfell . .410 222. Vivi in 1882, from a sketch by Sir Harry Johnston. (\'ivi Station was founded by Stanley in 1879 at the highest point of navigabilit}' of the Lower Congo. It was abandoned in favour of Matadi, on the opposite bank, in 1886) . . Sketch by Sir Harry Johnston . 411 223. The Post Office at Boma . . . Photograph by Grenfell . .414 224. First consignment of ivory from above Stanlej' Pool . . ,, . , 415 225. Railway Station, Matadi, looking down river . . . . . 418 226. Sefu,. son of Tipu-Tipu, and his repre- sentative in Congoland, with the two Belgian officers who were subsequently killed : photo taken by the Rev. William Forfeitt in 1891 . ... Photo by William Forfeitt . . 425 227. Facsimile of a sketch map by Baron Dhanis, presented by him to Grenfell in 1890 . . .... . ... 428 228. Congo State station of Basoko, near confluence of Aruwimi . . . Photograph by Grenfell . . 432 229. Red-bronze coloured pot of the Abango- bango people (Basoko country, Aruwimi confluence) . . . . ' „ ,> • • 434 230. Rev. Lawson Forfeitt's house near Matadi, Lower Congo. Glave after crossing Africa reached a neighbouring house of ' • Mr. Forfeitt's and died there . . Photograph by William Forfeitt . 438 231. American Baptist Mission church at Stanley Pool . ... Photograph by Grenfell . . 439 232. Rubber and ivory at State depot, ;SIobeka, Upper Congo . ...„,,., • • 44^ 233. The Congo State station at Nouvelle Anvers, Bangala • • 449 234. An elephant's tusk from the upper Mubangi, pared down and pierced to form an immense ivory flute. A good deal of the ivory first exported from the Congo was in this form . . . Photograph lent by Torday . . 453 235. A wooding post for State steamers, Upper Congo . ... Photograph by Grenfell . . 454 236. Lumps of india-rubber as brought in hy n^ltives of the Upper Congo . . Photo by Baptist Mission . . 460 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii NO. TITLE 237. Bolumbi, a fireman on S. S. Goodwill. A typical Bangala type 238. State landingf-stage at Bomwaiiga, with State soldiers drawn up in rank as guard of honour 239. Native soldier g-uarding: women hostages in chains . ... 240. The " chicote " or whip made of twisted hippo hide, which figures so much in Congo history. It is not unlike the hurhash of the Sudan, but this particu- lar form of whip and its name — chicote ■ — was invented by the Portuguese slave-traders of the eighteenth century 241. An American mission station at Bolengi, near the mouth of the Ruki-Busira River, whence much of the information was transmitted by Sjobloni and others concerning- the maladministration of the Crown Domain 242. Girl pupilsat theBaptist Mission, Yakusu, northern Congo . ... 243. Matadi, from the Baptist Mission Station, New Underbill . ... 244. The Congo State post of Bumba, northern Congo, at the edge of the Buja territory 245 Two Bangala soldiers in the service of the Congo State. These men are off duty and in "mufti." The Bangala are the best, most loyal, and most intelligent soldiers in the State forces . 246. A street in Matadi, the most important commercial centre on the Lower Congo, starting-point of the Congo Railway . 247. A train on the Congo Railway 248. Railway station on the line from Matadi to Stanley Pool . ... 249. Distichodiis sex/asciafns, a fish from the cataract Congo : collected by Baptist missionaries . ... SOURCE Photograph by Grenfell PAGE 462 Photograph by Baptist Mission . 464 . 467 Photograph by Grenfell 469 472 Photograph by the Baptist Mission 474 Photograph by Grenfell . . 479 Photograph by William Forfeitt . 483 487 488 489 Photograph lent by Mr. G. A. Boulenger . ... 492 MAPS IN VOL. I A Map of the Congo Regions published at Amsterdam in 1733, etc. . . . 79 Stanley Pool, from a survey by the Rev. George Grenfell . ... loi Confluence of the Congo and Mubangi, from a survey by the Rev. George Grenfell To face page 106 Stanley's general idea of the geography of the Congo basin in 1885, before the results of Grenfell's and Wissmann's journeys were made known . . 130 Sketch Map showing the principal journeys of the Rev. George Grenfell in the Congo region, etc. . . . . . ... 131 The Sketch-survey of the Portuguese-Congo Boundary, etc., signed by the three Commissioners . . . . . ' To face page 220 Map of the Lower Congo, showing the Cataract Region : by J. \V. Addison To face page 270 The River Congo at its northernmost bend, from a survey by the Rev. George Grenfell . . . . . To face page 290 Sketch Map to show Recent Troubles (Slave trade wars, atrocities, etc.), in connec- tion with the Natives of Central Africa, since 1885 . ... 443 Concessions Map, showing areas of Congo State withdrawn from free commerce . 477 Sketch Map to show navigability by steamers of the Congo and its affluents . . 495 Western Equatorial Africa : by J. W. Addison . . End of Volume GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO CHAPTER I GEORGE GRENFELL GEORGE GRENFELL, the central figure of this book, was a Cornishman, of the same stock, it is said, from which are descended other Grenfells who have become celebrated as the proprietors of iron foundries and coal mines, or as athletes and military commanders. It is possible, however, that as the events of the last twenty- five years recede from us into history no Grenfell will have left a more famous name than the missionary-explorer, who was born on the 21st of August 1849 at Trannack Mill, a house situated on his grandfather's property in the parish of San- creed, about four miles from Penzance in the direction of Land's End. Although of Cornish birth, however, Grenfell, like so many English missionaries to Africa and Asia during the last hundred years, was by residence and associations a man of the Midlands : his boyhood and early manhood were passed at Birmingham, where he was educated at King Edward's School. When scarcely more than a youth Grenfell became strongly attracted towards missionary work, following with especial interest that which was being done by the Baptist missionaries in the Cameroons. He was apprenticed at the age of fifteen to a Birming- ham firm (Messrs. Scholefield, Goodman, and Sons) dealing in hardware and machinery, and this apprenticeship always served him in good stead, having made him a practical I. B 2 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO mechanic, wonderfully clever at coping with all the difficul- ties that the machinery of a steamer can meet with in navigating African rivers. His interest in missionary work, however, led him to study at the Baptist College of Bristol. At Bristol, Grenfell made the acquaintance of Alfred Saker, a veteran in the mission field of the Cameroons, the founder, one might say, of all that is best and most permanent in the foreign civilization of the Cameroons people. Saker was paying a brief visit to England in 1874. The accounts he gave of his work decided Grenfell to return with him, and accordingly in that year — 1874 — George Grenfell commenced his career as an African missionary and explorer in the Duala communities on the estuary of the Cameroons River. In 1876 he returned to England, married his first wife (Miss Hawkes), and made his home with her at Akwa town, on the Cameroons River. Here, after a year's residence, his wife died in childbirth, and Grenfell moved in 1877 t^^^ mission settlement of Victoria on Ambas Bay. Between 1875 and 1878 he explored a good deal of the Cameroons coast region, with the results which are described in other chapters. He also visited parts of the island of Fernando P6. Twice in 1878 he was [with a colleague, T. J. Comber] despatched by the Baptist Missionary Society to explore the region of the Lower Conoo with the view of foundinor a chain of mission stations which might reach eventually from the mouth of the Cono-o ria-ht across Africa to the Indian Ocean. When this first attempt to reach Stanley Pool was foiled by the hostility of the natives, Grenfell returned to the Cameroons, and for a short time left the service of the Mission. Whilst in the Cameroons (1879) he married his second wife (Miss Edgerley), who was of a West Indian family that had long been settled either at Fernando P6 or at Ambas Bay. Invited to re-enter the service of the Mission to carry out the scheme of Congo enter- prise for which Mr. Robert Arthington, Sir Charles Wathen, and others had found the preliminary expenses, Grenfell first established himself at Musuko on the Lower Congo (in 1880) to organize the transport to San Salvador, and then, in 1881, returned to England to superintend the completing of the Society's first missionary steamer on the Upper Congo — the Peace (a gift from Robert Arthington). As soon as the plan of this vessel had been decided on he returned to the Congo in 1883, and from that time onwards his career as a missionary- explorer was never interrupted (except by occasional brief rests in England) until his death on the ist of July 1906 GEORGE GRENFELL 3 at Basoko, near the junction of the Aruwuni with the Upper Congo. ^ 3. GRENFELL IN 1 878, STARTING WITH THE FIRST li.M.S. MISSION TO SAN SALVADOR, KINGDOM OF KONGO ' For the convenience of readers I append a concise summary of Grenfell's comings and goings to and from Africa, and the Congo in particular : — Appointed by the B. M.S. as a missionary . . . Nov. loth 1874 Sailed for Cameroons (with Saker) .... Dec. 19th 1874 Arrived in England for first furlough .... End of 1875 Second departure for Cameroons (with his first wife, lice Hawkes, who died early in January 1878) . . Feb. 26th 1876 Left Cameroons for Congo— first visit . . . . January-March 1878 Second visit to the Congo May-October 1878 Married at Victoria, Cameroons, to his second wife (w'7r-r>-^ ^-(rrh. /E-<««. Grenfell's emoluments from the Baptist Mission during his long term of service (practically from 1874 to 1879 and 1880 to 1906) were limited to an annual allowance of ^180. When he entered the service of King Leopold as commissioner from 1892 to 1893, the King, by arrangement with Grenfell, paid a sum of about ^700 to the Mission to meet the cost of replacing Grenfell's services. So far as Grenfell was con- cerned he merely continued to receive as before his annual allowance of /180 from the B.M.S. GEORGE GRENFELL 9 than is necessary to give a general idea of Grenfell's work on the Congo. The actual biography — in England and in Africa — of this missionary-explorer will be compiled in a more suitable manner by another writer. It might, however, be not unbecoming to mention in this prefatory chapter that Grenfell refers constantly to three personalities (other than his Congo colleagues), with grateful remarks for their advice and kindness. The first, very naturally, is Mr. Alfred Henry Baynes, for many years the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society ; the second is Dr. Scott Keltic, the well-known Secretary of the 5. BOLOBO STATION ; GRENFELL'S HOME ON THE UPPER CONGO FOR SIXTEEN YEARS Royal Geographical Society; and the third is the brother of his first wife, Mr. Joseph Hawkes, of Birmingham, who looked after Grenfell's children when they were at school in England, and rendered many other kindly services. The writer of this book believes that practically the whole of Grenfell's private papers have been placed in his hands, because he has picked out geographical and scientific notes even from the backs of washing lists ! It is therefore pleasant to record that throughout the whole of this vast correspondence there is not one single note indicative of un- kindly feeling, of jealousy towards colleagues, of envy or dis- paragement of more highly honoured brother-explorers. With lo GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the exception of one or two references to employes of the Congo Concessionnah'e Companies whose doings have been discussed in recent trials and Hbel actions, there is nothing in these journals that might not be pubhshed to the world as it stands. This book, however, does not deal entirely and only with the work of George Grenfell. His researches, photographs, notes, and references provide more than half the book. But it has been deliberately intended by the present writer to combine with an account of the geographical and scientific explorations of Grenfell a survey of the contributions to science and to our general knowledge of West Africa provided by the Baptist Mission of Great Britain from the date of the arrival of Dr. Prince and the Rev. John Clarke at the island of Fernando P6 in the year 1840 down to the present day. Whatever may have been the ideals of hypothetical mis- sionary societies in the middle of the nineteenth century — ideals which gave rise to the conventional notion (scarcely yet dead) of a missionary as a red-nosed person in a chimney- pot hat, with black clothes, black gloves, huge boots, and a large white tie, who sang hymns under palm trees to unrespon- sive wild beasts — the representatives of the Baptist Missionary Society have always been essentially practical men, with whom science was, so far as they were able to serve it, a part of their religion. Wherever they went they collected notes on languages, on ethnography, and specimens to illustrate the natural history of the countries they visited. If there was a mountain anywhere within reach, they ascended it, boiled thermometers on the top and took the temperature of the air. They fixed the latitude and longitude of their stations, and collected a large amount of geographical information which very often found its way into circulation through other channels. For the earlier missionaries were persons of retiring and modest demeanour, who were only too glad to pass on their notes to explorers, consuls, and the commanders of gun- boats, in whose reports or volumes this information has usually appeared with an acknowledgment of its source, but occasionally, without. The author of this present book first visited the Baptist mission stations on the Cameroons in 1882. He resided at Cameroons and Fernando P6 in a Consular capacity from 1885 to 1888. In the autumn of 1882 he ascended the River Congo, first of all as far as Stanley Pool and later on to Bolobo. Be- tween Banana Point and Stanley Pool he was not infrequently GEORGE GRENFELL the guest of the newly founded Baptist mission stations, and so in one way and the other made the personal acquaintance of all the notable pioneers of this Mission. Noteworthy among these pioneers were men of colour, negro missionaries from the West Indies — such men as Joseph Fuller and John Pinnock, jr.^ In- formation regarding the Cameroons which the present writer derived from Pinnock and Fuller in the 'eighties is incorporated in this book, and he has ventured to supply as a sort of mortar to the stones of others' quarrying experiences and notes of his 6. A missionary's house at BOLENGI, upper CONGO own connected with the regions described by Grenfell and his colleagues. There may be some reading this book who have supported Mission work by practical contributions, as well as wordy sym- pathy, who will complain that the aspect I present to them is entirely secular, that very few references are made to religious teaching. That is so : partly because the religious work con- nected with Grenfell's mission will be described in another volume by a minister of his Church. But there is also another reason which should be taken into account, not only by those who divorce the study of nature from religious ideas, but by others, equally unreasonable, who not believing in the par- ' Both of whom I am glad to think are still living. F"or Pinnock's portrait see page 225. (H. H. J.) 12 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO ticular tenets or dogmas that may be held by such-and-such a missionary society would ignore the enormous amount of good that has been accomplished by Christian missions in Africa from a purely ethical standpoint, and the gigantic con- tributions they have made to the store of the world's know- ledge in philology, in folklore, in first-hand studies of primitive people, in contributions to botany, zoology, geography, and map-making. It is the desire of the present writer to draw general attention to these particular aspects and results of missionary toil and enterprise. My first journeys in tropical Africa (i 882-1 883) revealed to me this collateral view of mission work and opened my eyes to the missionaries' notable achievements in the introduc- tion of a sound, material civilization (for the civilization which is merely based on the singing of hymns, the intoning of psalms, and the repetition of prayers is most z^wsound). The scientific understanding of Africa was assisted by their com- pilation of treatises on dying languages ; while the friendly relations of Europeans and negroes were forwarded by the Mission grrammars and vocabularies of livinsf lanoruaores destined to be means of intercourse between black and white or black and yellow. I was the guest of such great missionaries of the Roman Church as Pere Duparquet in southern Angola, visited Bishop Crowther and his son in the Niger Delta, discussed ethnology with patriarchs of African discovery like the Rev. Hugh Goldie of the United Presbyterian Mission on the Cross River ; and watched the Primitive Methodists timidly holding on in Fernando P6 under the still frowning Spanish Govern- ment (not then friendly to Protestant missions). I visited the Baptist missionaries on the Duala shore in the Cameroons, and made the acquaintance of Comber, Bentley, Crudgington, and other Baptist missionaries on the western Congo. My work then led me to the other side of the continent, the sphere of the Universities' Mission at Zanzibar and of the Church Missionary Society on the Mombasa coast, to the French, Dutch, and Irish priests of the Mission of the Holy Ghost and the Sacred Heart of Mary, and later on to the Mission of the White Fathers on Tanganyika and Nyasa, the Lon- don Missionary Society, and the Missions of the Established and Free Churches of Scotland in British Central Africa. I scarcely recall with any of these propagandists a discussion on theology or matters of faith. If such had taken place, no doubt deep-seated differences of opinion might have been revealed ; but I do remember (besides most warm-hearted, unstinted hos- GEORGE GRENFELL 13 pitality) that I soon came to regard them as men deeply versed in the lore of Africa, and above all as the Tribunes of the people. It has been the custom to regard missionaries of British nationality as pioneers of Empire ; and it is so far true in that the successful establishment of a British relioious mission has frequently been followed by a sphere of influence, a pro- tectorate, a colony. But this has arisen partly because the calming of the natives and the civilization introduced by the missionaries has attracted British trade, while acquaintance with 7. liRICK.-.MAKl.\G Al llOl'Ulu: AN ELEJIENT IN "SOUND, MATERIAL CIVILIZATION " the missionaries themselves as examples of the British type ot white man has favourably disposed native chiefs and people towards the political intervention of Great Britain. To a certain extent similar results have followed from the action of other missionaries, not British ; that is to say that the work of the Rhenish missions in South-West Africa certainly paved the way for the German Protectorate over that region. Portuguese missionaries attempted in former centuries to do the same thing for their own country.^ The French missionaries have quite 1 Curiously enough they brought about a contrary effect, undoing by their pohtical ambitions some of the good achieved by the conquistadores who had preceded them, and who had captivated the fancy of the negro to a degree hardly equalled by the representatives of any other white race down to the present day— those conquistadores 14 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO naturally attempted to " francify " West Africa, Central Africa, Northern Africa, and Madagascar. Italian missionaries have desired to bring Abyssinia back to the influence of modern Rome. It is not surprising therefore if British missionaries have wished to replace the sickening disorder they have found in native communities by the peace and comfort that prevail in most British colonies. But it is not the case that they have been "Imperialists" first and propagandists second. More often than not British mis- sionaries have made a stout fight for the independence, the property, the morality of the people amongst whom they have settled. One has only to recall the efforts made by bishops and missionaries of the Church of England in Natal, by the Scottish missionaries in the Shire Highlands and on Lake Nyasa, the London Missionary Society's agents (of whom Livingstone was once one) from the interior of Cape Colony right up to Tan- ganyika through Bechuanaland, to recall instances in which British missionaries have incurred the dislike of British Imperial and Colonial officials, military officers, consuls, explorers, or concession-hunters by standing up for the rights of the native, and even deprecating the introduction of a direct form of British government where the native community seemed happy and well ordered without it. Of course here and there abuses of missionary authority have occurred. Elated with the rapid growth of their in- fluence— an influence entirely unsupported by arms— the mis- sionary has thought to create a Theocracy, a little state governed on his own plan, in which he would wield supreme authority as spiritual and temporal ruler, keeping out the roystering trader, the miner, the hunter, and even the consul or magistrate. Rare cases have even occurred w^here, unbalanced by the power they wielded, missionaries have had recourse to arbitrary and even cruel methods for enforcing their decrees, or rather, where they have allowed " lay agents " to perform the obnoxious part of castigator. The present writer has even once or twice in his own career as an administrator come into conflict with missionary opinion, the latter being doggedly on the side of peace when warlike measures seemed unavoidable if some definite authority was to be upheld. But the excep- tions to the general rule of missionary beneficence are trifling who after only a few years' intercourse left an impress on Benin not yet lost, who inspired much of the civilization of south Congoland, and who left many a grand building and many a word in the languages to attest their brief domination over the East African littoral. GEORGE GRENFELL 15 in comparison to the results of a hundred years of missionary work in Africa from, let us say, 1807 to 1907. When this period has receded into the perspective of history we shall realize that it is the one section of that tremendous century of the European invasion of Africa to which we can look back with absolute satisfaction, since its results must be adjudged good by the canon common to all humanity, to the educated Moslem, the Christian, the Agnostic, or the worshipper of African deities. Missionary thought, at any rate in the Protestant fold, 8. NATIVE BLACKSMITHS TRAINED BY THE BAPTIST MISSION ON THE UPPER CONGO passed through one or two silly phases in the sentimental 'forties and 'fifties of the last century, phases held up to well- deserved and scarcely too trenchant caricature by Charles Dickens in his sketch of Mrs. Jellyby, her associates and her attempts to civilize Borriaboola-Gha.^ Occasionally, more- over, outside missionary circles, there has flitted before one's mental vision in reading literature connected with missions (of twenty years ago and more) a concept of a large, loutish negro or Asiatic, dressed in too many garments, lolling at his ease, supported by the doles of far-away contributors, and only called upon in redemption of his laziness to sing a good many ^ These passages in Bleak House were really intended to satirize the ridiculous fuss made over the " King " of Bonny. i6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO badly translated hymns and to have waded through Scripture history from Genesis to Judges. I write "there has flitted before one's mental vision," but as likely as not the lay reader was biassed by writers inimical to missionary influence, and found in their caricatures the ideals which the missionaries were supposed to work for, but which in reality never entered the minds of the most sentimental amongst them. No such ideal of hypocritical idleness can be found by 9. B.M.S.S. "peace" on the NORTHERN CONGO, NEAR STANLEY FALLS The " Peace" was the steamer in which Grenfell made his principal exploring journeys. anyone who probes the literature of the Baptist Missionary Society, certainly not that inspired by Saker, nor which has grown up since 1878 in the great Congo Mission. Work, hard work, intelligent work, education, thrift, sanitation, the rising up to lead a decent, joyous, comfortable life are among the aims striven for in their work and teaching by such men as Grenfell, Comber, Bentley, Weeks, Lewis, and all the representatives of this mission. But as it seems impossible in this world to satisfy every- body, the very stress that I may lay for the conciliation of the GEORGE GRENFELL 17 Mammon of Unriohteousness, of that orowiiiQ- class which is more and more incHfferent to the inculcation of dogma, on the practical good achieved by missionary societies will furnish a basis for the sneers of peevish reactionaries (and there are still many) who care nothing" for the "moral and material" welfare of the backward races, but whose only object in supporting missionary societies is that the heathen may be converted to such and such a section of Christianity, that in Africa may be perpetuated the religious hatreds, differences, and rivalries of Mediaeval Europe, or of some petty English provincial town. I still venture to hope, however, that any reader who has the patience to go through these two bulky volumes may have been brought to realize firstly the great material good effected by the work of the Baptist Mission in Fernando Po, the Cameroons, and the basin of the Congo ; and secondly, the remarkable additions contributed by Grenfell and his colleagues to the sum of human knowledge, to scientific research : which as time goes on must become more and more identified with our religion, and with our attempts to gauge and declare the truth. I. — c CHAPTER II FERNANDO PO : 1840-58 THE Baptist Missionary Society of England came into existence at Nottingham in the autumn of 1792 as an outcome of the eloquence of William Carey, who sailed with his wife for India on a Danish ship in 1793.^ In 1806 the attention of this missionary society was drawn to the condi- tion of the negro slaves in the British West Indies, and the first missionary went out from England to Jamaica in 18 14. Here, in Jamaica, and in other West India islands, the Baptist missionaries joined forces with the Quakers and other Non- conformist bodies in adv'ocating the abolition of slavery. When this result was achieved the Baptists began to turn their attention to the movement for repatriating freed slaves on the West Coast of Africa. West Indian and United States Baptist ministers had already interested themselves in the foundation of Liberia. In pursuance of ideas similar to that which brought about the foundation of Liberia, the Baptist Mission sent two of its workers in Jamaica (Dr. G. K. Prince and the Rev. John Clarke) to find a further likely home for freed slaves on West African territory other than the settle- ments of Sierra Leone and Liberia. A visit was paid to the Spanish possessions of Fernando P6 in 1840, and the report of Prince and Clarke being favourable," in 1843 two expeditions of Baptist missionaries, amongst whom were the Rev. Joseph Merrick (of Jamaica), Alfred Saker, Thomas Sturgeon, Dr. ' Any idea of Christian propaganda, except such as had already been estabhshed by the Church of Rome, was distasteful to the Directors of the Honourable East India Company, who feared therefrom an outbreak of IMuhammadan and Hindu fanaticism. The beginnings of the Baptist Missionary Society in India were practi- cally only made possible by the protection and assistance of the King and Queen of Denmark, that country at the end of the eighteenth century ha\ ing a certain foothold on or influence over the shores or islands of the Bay of Bengal. ^ In regard to the land and buildings offered then for acquisition at the north end of the island, land which had formerly been cleared and occupied by the Admiralty as a naval station. 18 FERNANDO PO : 1840 58 19 G. K. Prince, and the Rev. John Clarke/ set out for I'ernando P6. Prince, Sturgeon, and Merrick had travelled from England to Fernando P6 by some more direct route than the customary sailing-vessel voyage via the West Indies; but Saker and Clarke went first to Jamaica, where they gathered more people who were de- sirous to emigrate to Africa, and they did not reach Port Clarence, at the north end of Fer- nando P6, till Feb- ruary 1844, They made the journey all the way from Cornwall to Jam- aica and Jamaica to Fernando P6 in a small sailing ves- sel, the Chilmark, of only 179 tons. The island of Fernando P6 is said traditionally to have been discov- ered by a Portu- guese navigator in 1471, whose name was Fernam do Poo or Povo [" Ferdinand of the people "]. He is reported to have THE REV. JOHN CLARKE, A PIONEER AFRICAN PHILO- LOGIST AND MISSIONARY IN FERNANDO Po 1 The Rev. John Clarke, of Jericho, Jamaica, was one of the first students of African languages of the modern school. Writing in the 'forties of the last century, he had already grasped the idea — promulgated first by Lichtenstein in 1808— of the homogeneity of the Bantu languages. He realized that the southern third of Africa was covered with but one great speech group (except of course the tongues of the Bushmen and Hottentot), and understood that there was community of origin between the languages of Zanzibar and Fernando P6. Clarke published in 1844 Specimens of Dialects : Short Vocabularies of about Two Hundred Africa7i Lant^uages" which he had taken down from freed slaves. He thus no doubt suggested to a brother missionary of the Church of England, the Rev. S. S. Koelle, that much greater work, Polyglotta Africana^ which was soon afterwards commenced at Sierra Leone. Clarke was also the author of the earliest and perhaps the best treatises on the indigenous Bantu language of Fernando P6, entitled The Adeeyah Vocabulary (1841) and Introduction to the Fernandian Tongue (1848). These are further alluded to in an appendix to the present book. Owing to ill-health, he left Fernando P6 in 1849 with a party of Jamaican emigrants who were dissatisfied with their life in Africa, and returned to the West Indies. Clarke died in 1879. 20 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO called the island, very appropriately, Ilha Formosa [the "Beautiful Island"]. He afterwards turned to the north, and discovered, or at any rate visited and named, the Benin River, which on account of the rich forest on its banks he styled Rio Formoso or the Beautiful River. Nothintr more is known or recorded of him, but the island has ever since borne his name in a slightly altered form. The Portuguese made but little attempt to colonize the island, either on account of the hostility of the indigenes, or because of the unhealthy climate of the coast. In 1777 it was transferred to Spain in exchange for an island and a strip of coast in Brazil. The Spaniards desired to make it the base for their slave-trading operations in the Bights of Biafra and Benin, for towards the close of the eighteenth century an increasino- demand was beinor made for necjro labour in the Spanish-American possessions. But the Spaniards abandoned the island owing to the hostility of the natives in 1782 (and also because of the unhealthiness of the climate). British war- ships and merchant vessels began to visit Fernando P6 in 1783, and from 1827 till 1845 Fernando P6 became the naval base for the British fleet in the Gulf of Guinea.^ Till 1834 the island was governed for Great Britain by an energetic man, Lieut.-Colonel Nicholls, who had already conceived the ambitious idea of a great British tropical possession in the Cameroons, and who had actually hoisted the British flag on that coast and concluded a treaty with the local chief of Bimbia, near the base of the Cameroons Mountain. When the British Government decided to evacuate Fer- nando P6 in 1834, they sold the property they had acquired from the Bube natives at the north end of the island to Messrs. Dillon and Tennant, who afterwards transferred it • In 1827 the celebrated navigator Captain W. F. Owen took possession of the island (on Cliristmas Day) for King George IV, and purchased one square mile of land from the Bube chiefs. Besides his two frigates the Edoi and the Diadon, he had with him f/ie first sicam gimboat in these waters, the Africa/i. It was announced that the following reasons induced the British Government to take this step: (i) To watch slavers and to check the Slave Trade in the Bight of Biafra. (2) To be able to liberate negroes taken in slave vessels in the Gulf of Guinea, and so avoid the long voyage to Sierra Leone. (3) To be able to move the Mixed Commission Court from Sierra Leone and abandon, as Government settlements, Sierra Leone and Cape Coast Castle, should the island be found to be as healthy as the projectors of the plan anticipated. (4) To afford the greatest possible facilities for introducing religion, commerce, and civilization into Africa. But rum and debauchery, besides ignorance of African hygiene and the mosquito danger, played havoc with the bluejackets and marines ; and in 1834 Admiral Fleming ordered the abandonment of the station as a naval base in favour of the peninsula of Sierra Leone. The Niger expedition caused it to be partially occupied till 1845. FERNANDO PO : 1840-58 21 to the West African Company, whose affairs were directed by a certain Captain Beecroft.^ The West African Com- pany sold their property in 1843 to the Baptist Mission. Meantime, between 1827 and 1840, a large extraneous negro population [generally called " Poto " negroes] had been settled in the vicinity of Port Clarence. Here the tribunal for judging the captured slave-trading ships was established (until 1834), and in many cases the released slaves were de- posited at the north end of Fernando P6 in default of any other home. II. CLARENCE (OR SANTA ISAllELJ I'KAK, FERNANDO Po, ABOUT 10,000 FEET IN ALTITUDE It was chiefly amongst the West Indian immigrants [who hoped to found another Liberia], and the numerous slaves from the Congo, Cameroons, and Niger Delta freed by the British cruisers and landed at Port Clarence, that the Baptist Mission- ary Society carried on its work ; though several not unsuccess- ful attempts were made to Christianize and civilize the timid Bubes or indigenous forest tribes of Fernando P6. These latter, however, proved themselves sixty years ago, as at the present time, very refractory to European civilization. Though ' Beecroft subsequently became British Consul [and Acting Spanish Governor] for Fernando P6 and Consul for the Oil Rivers, and in this capacity, in a small steamer called the Ethiope^ he explored the Cross River behind Old Calabar, his furthest point in 1844 remaining the limit to European exploration in that direction until the settlement of the Anglo-German boundary in 1890. 22 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO timid, and seldom actively hostile to the white man, they shrank from his influence, and had always resented his presence on the island from the earliest attempts at settlement by the Portuguese and Spaniards. Nevertheless, at Port Clarence (so christened in 1827 in honour of the future William IV) the Baptist Mis- sionary Society founded a flourishing station amid a foreign, English-speaking colony of over two thousand negroes and mulattoes. Some of the West Indian families remain there to this day, or have moved over to the adjoining coast at Ambas Bay.^ But even as early as 1845 the Baptist missionaries were led to anticipate difficulties from the intention of Spain to reoccupy Fernando P6, and to exclude therefrom as far as possible any form of Protestant Christianity, or any agency that might keep alive in the minds of the negro settlers the idea of British nationality. In 1846 two Spanish warships arrived. The Spanish flag was hoisted at Port Clarence, which was re- named Santa Isabel, and a number of Spanish priests were landed. To the Prior of the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was entrusted the control of all education in the island. Although the Spanish Governor displayed a certain kindli- ness and consideration towards the obviously good results of the work of Prince, Saker, and Clarke, the priests who accom- panied him objected strongly to the presence on the island of these Baptist missionaries. Their objections might have led to the immediate expulsion of the Baptists but that in 1847 almost all the Spanish missionaries were dead of fever or had with- drawn owing to severe illness. They were obliged moreover to accept the medical ministrations of Dr. G. K. Prince, and this rendered difficult an attitude of uncompromising hostility. The Baptists therefore were allowed for some twelve years to continue their educational work in a very limited form to those foreign negroes who were already members of the Baptist Church. But at last, in 1858, even this permission was with- drawn, and the Baptists were practically expelled from the island, their land (originally purchased from the West African Trading Company) being expropriated. The Spanish Gover- nor held out some prospect of monetary compensation, and counting on this act of obvious justice being carried into effect by the metropolitan Government at Madrid, the head of the ' From one of these is descended the widow of the missionary-explorer Grenfell. FERNANDO PO : 1840-58 23 Mission (then Alfred Saker) resolved to invest the com- pensation for their property in Fernando P6 in purchasing the site for a large settlement on the opposite coast of Ambas Bay.^ The best work of the Baptist Mission in Fernando P6 was carried on between the years 1844 and 1849. Mr. Clarke, however, had returned to Jamaica in 1848 with a number of dissatisfied West Indians. The incidents of Liberian history were repeated. Mulattoes and negroes born in America found they could not stand the equatorial West African climate much better than Europeans : that is to say they were not any more immune from malarial fever. The Spanish Government at this period paralysed industry. It would not (then) take com- plete charge of the island and carry out necessary public works; neither would it allow the missionaries or the West Indian settlers to do so. In 1849, Dr. Prince, his wife, and another medical mis- sionary, Newbegin,^ were compelled to leave for England owing to serious illness. The fact was, no one in those days guessed the connection of the mosquito with malarial fever. The actual climate of Fernando P6 was — is — much less en- feebling, much healthier than that of the mainland. But the rank vegetation round the settlements harboured innumerable mosquitoes, including, no doubt, many Anopheles. The im- ported slaves from the adjoining mainland supplied the malarial germs, and so the fevers of Fernando P6 — from 1780 to (say) 1900 — were more frequent and more fatal than those of Old Calabar or the Cameroons estuary. But since the avoid- ance of the mosquito and the destruction of his harbourage have been understood at Fernando P6, Europeans have found it (especially above 3,000 feet altitude) not much less healthy than the kindred island of Sao Thome [which is actually a European colony, like Madeira, though under the Equator]. The "Poto"^ population of West Indian, Sierra Leone, and freed-slave origin which was mainly planted by the Bap- ^ As a matter of fact, it was not until the British Ambassador at Madrid had made very strong representations to the Spanish Government, that the compensation money — ^^1,500 — was paid, at the close of 1861. The Mission had been led to expect that they would receive ^2,000, which was considerably less than \\ hat they had spent on their lands at Port Clarence, and they had therefore invested /2,ooo by 1858 in the acquisition of the Victoria settlement at Ambas Bay. ^ Dr. Newbegin afterwards returned to Cameroons. ^ Poto was the Bube name for the British settlement at Clarence (now Santa Isabel). The word seems to have meant "foreign" and may be an abbreviation of " Portuguese." 24 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO tists round Santa Isabel, has after many fluctuations and resolves to leave Spanish rule finally begun to prosper, owing to the cacao-planting industry introduced by Messrs. John Holt and Co. and by some enterprising Spaniards, Cubans, and Portuguese. This agriculture, the use of the English language, the adhesion to Protestant forms of Christianity, are all relics of the Baptist settlement of 1843-9 and 185 1-8. In the beginning of 1870 the Spanish Government under the liberal direction of Prince allowed the Primitive Metho- dists to succeed the Baptists in order to minister to the needs of the English-speaking colony which was outside the fold of Rome. But of late years this mission has been harassed in its work by many restrictions. They may not have bells on their churches, their day-schools have been peremptorily closed. They may not conduct services in the church at the burial of the dead. They are thus very much hampered in dealing with the civilized negro element in the Europeanized towns. But the Primitive Methodists do not appear to be prevented by the Spanish Government from working among the indi- genous Bubes, and as early as 1875 they had added to Clarke's studies of the Bube language. This interesting aboriginal population [which will be further described in the second volume of this book] seems now to be on the down grade. They are succumbing to the bad rum which is unhappily allowed to be imported (or manufactured) and sold by the Cuban, " Poto," or European traders: despite the protests of the Catholic and Methodist missionaries. Although the attitude of the Spanish Government in the island has not been consistent with principles of religious free- dom and may in this instance have been inspired by the Roman Catholic missionaries, these last have been — at any rate for more than thirty years — solicitous for the welfare of the Bubes. ^ When Clarke and Prince originally selected Fernando P6 as a refuge for Jamaican negroes who were unhappy in the West Indies, and similarly when the British Government chose Fernando P6 as the dumping ground for the slaves set free from captured slave-ships, neither party gave much heed to the real natives of Fernando P6 — the Bubes — who in Clarke's 1 The Rev. Father Joaquim Juanola, a missionary of the order "Del Inmaculado Corazon de Man'a," pubhshed in 1890 an important study of the Bube language. His colleagues have carefully explored and mapped the island. Principal Father Coll and Father Albanell of the same mission have done good work among the Bubes of the IMoka district. FERNANDO PO : 1840-58 25 day (say 1 848) numbered over twenty thousand. Subsequently the Baptist missionaries made a special study of this people just as the Spanish priests have done. Both 'types of mis- sionaries^ acted as buffers between the British seamen or Spanish soldiers, the traders, planters, West Indian, Sierra Leone, and Kru negroes, on the one hand; and the timid, sometimes treacher- ous indigenes on the other. Grenfell [who visited Fernando P6 between 1876 and 1 901] was one of the very few Euro- peans who ever in- duced a Bube to take up regular ser- vice and to leave Fernando P6 for employment. But even now the Bube stands aloof and goes on leading the life of the Stone Age, whilst Fer- nando P6 planters send all the way to Liberia for labour in the cacao planta- tions. There is only one thing the white man can offer which will tempt the Bube to do any work : rum. It is to be feared by the time the Bube is ready to accept as a first principle that he must toil as other men do he will be — as a race — on the verge of extinction, poisoned by rum and gin in spite of all the conferences of European powers which lay clown principles regarding the sale of alcohol to 1 And equally so— according to the Austiian traveller, Oskar Baumann — have the Primitive Methodists through such men as the Rev. John Barleycorn. 12. A BUBE OR INDIGENOUS NATIVE OF FERNANDO PO 26 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO heedless savages, and decline to put them into practice. Perhaps the missionaries may intervene in time to save a remnant of a very interesting Bantu people. But the rapid growth of a foreign population — negro, mulatto, and white — in an island of extraordinary fertility and beauty, with a range of climate and products from equatorial heat and all the most precious growths of the tropics to the crisp coolness, the flowers and vegetables of western Europe, may soon swamp the poor Bubes in spite of all the missionaries can do to tame and train them. CHAPTER III THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 THE name Cameroons, which is primarily appHcable to the estuary of many rivers which lies to the south-east of the Cameroon Mountains, was given in the first place by the Portuguese when their ships discovered this region in 1480. The word is an English corruption of the Portuguese plural Camaroes, meaning "prawns." When the Portuguese ships entered the brackish water of this estuary (about 1480) they noticed, as many subsequent travellers have done, the abundance of prawns, especially in the mangrove creeks. The name has recently been extended to all the region lying to the south of Old Calabar country and the Rio del Rey estuary, and north of about 2° 30' N. Lat. The Germans, when they first began to take an interest in African geography, chose to spell the name phonetically (as it was pronounced by the English), and the official designation of a vast German possession which has grown up from the original nucleus on the Cameroons estuary is now given as Kamerun. No doubt many people, English as well as German, think this is some word of African origin, and not a very trivial designation meaning prawns or shrimps. Very little was known of this country beyond its actual coast line until the Baptist missionaries moved across to the peninsula of Bimbia and the Duala shores of the Cameroons estuary in 1845. Already in 1844 Saker^ and Merrick" had turned their eyes ' Alfred Saker, the "Apostle of the Cameroons," was born in 1814 at the still charming village of Borough Green, near Wrotham, Kent. He was the son of a millwright and engineer, passed an examination at Woolwich Arsenal, and worked as a draughtsman in the Government dockyards of Deptford and Devonport till he joined the Baptist Mission in 1843. ^ Joseph Merrick was a West Indian mulatto who from the beginning of 1845 devoted himself more especially to the Isubu people of the Bimbia promontory. This race, which also inhabits the north-western part of the Cameroons delta — Bimbia Peninsula, in fact, and the islands or promontories immediately to the south — is rather distinct from the Bakwiri on the north and the Uuala people on the south, the Isubu dialect being a separate language from the Duala, though closely akin to 27 28 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO towards the Cameroons, attracted no doubt by the magnificent extinct volcano which at some twenty miles distance from the great peak of Fernando P6 rises about 13,370 feet straight up from the seashore, and occasionally has its highest ridges flecked with snow. In the beginning of 1845 Merrick visited Bimbia. On this promontory resided a somewhat truculent slave-trading " king," who had taken the name of William ever since the British occupied Fernando P6 in the reign of 13. THE CAMEROONS MOUNTAINS SEEN FROM NEAR FERNANDO PO King William IV. King William of Bimbia had indeed allowed Colonel Nicholls to hoist the British flag over his territory some ten years before the arrival of IMerrick, and it was always considered down to the sudden irruption of the Germans in 1884 that Bimbia as well as the adjoining Ambas Bay was under British protection. It was not, however, till 1848 that a permanent station was established by the Baptists on the Bimbia promontory, for Bakwiri. Merrick made a special study of the Isubu language, chiefly in Scripture translations, and these were of some service to the great grammarian, Dr. W. I. Bleek. In fact, down to the present day the only publislicd authority on the Isubu language is Merrick, who wrote sixty years ago. The present writer has made a considerable study also of the Isubu language with the aid of Duala scholars trained in the Baptist mission schools in the Cameroons. He has not had the opportunity hitherto of publishing his researches. THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 29 King- William was at first a little suspicious about their settle- ment, as he was anxious to continue a profitable slave trade with British, Portuguese, and Brazilian captains, and feared that the mission- aries would give information to the British pre- ventive cruisers. It was therefore in the Duala country of the Cameroons estuary that the Baptist Mission erected its first permanent estab- lishment. Alfred Saker went in 1845 to visit King Bell and Chief Di- do^ on the Duala shore. Bell ap- parently did not offer any site for a mission station, and Chief Dido in doing so incurred the anger of his superior, King Akwa, with the result that Saker's first attempt nearly ended in bloodshed. But by his diplomacy he appeased the quarrel and induced Dido to waive his claim to be the host of the Baptist Mission in favour of King Akwa, in whose town in June 14. A TYPICAL DUALA GENTLEMAN OF THE OLDEN TIME (ABOUr 1874) Shark Dido, of Dido Town, Cameroons, son of the Chief Dido herein referred to. 1 Many of the meaningless or ridiculous names borne by African chiefs or head- men in the first half of the nineteenth century are derived from the names of the British cruisers in these waters, Chief Dido of the Cameroons taking his name, for example, from H.M.S. Dido. Or the names were taken from trading ships, or were bestowed by the humour of the traders. Very often a real native designation received a misinterpretation at the hands of the English. Thus, King Bell (whose dynasty afterwards became famous as that which sold the Duala country to the Germans) was really King Mbeli or Mbela, a clan name amongst the Duala chiefs. 30 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO 1845 was established the first Baptist mission station on the continent of Africa. This, after the fashion of the time, was called Bethel. It remained in existence down to 1887 and was then transferred, at the request of the German Government, to the Basel Mission. The Duala people, amongst whom the Baptist Mission was to play an important role, was a tribe of considerable potency, though not very numerous. By tradition they had reached the shores of the Cameroons estuary some one hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago, coming, they alleged, from the north or north-east.^ The progenitor of the tribe was a chieftain named Mbeli or Mbela who had two sons, Koli and Duala. Koli became the ancestor of the Isubu people of Bimbia, and Duala "da Mbeli" originated the Ba-duala of the Cameroons River. Mbeli (in the corrupted European form of Bell) remains a royal clan name. They displaced the Basa tribe which still inhabits the " bush " country behind the Duala on the south, but which does not differ remarkably from the Duala in language. If this legend as to the direction from which the Duala came has been correctly interpreted, it opens up a problem in Bantu migrations, for the Duala language is much more truly Bantu, much less corrupted than the forms of speech like the Abo, Bonken, etc., which seem to have pre- ceded it alonor the shores of the Cameroons River. One might therefore have concluded that the Duala had approached the Cameroons from the south-east, were it not that the Bakundu, Isubu, Bakwiri, and even the Bakundu and Barondo languages of the upper Mungo River and the northern Cameroons coast are also akin to Duala (Bakundu, especially) and are more typically " Bantu " than the pre-existing languages of the Cameroons basin. Not only in their language, however, but also in physique and capacity for civilization, the Duala people suggest closer affinities with a superior Bantu type of the Upper Congo and of the Great Lakes region. They are sometimes quite light in skin, with intelligent faces and good brain development. Their physique was once splendid," though towards the close of the nineteenth century they began to exhibit some de- * Grenfell held that they had come up from the souths and were originally settled on the Lungasi River. His proposition is more tenable on linguistic grounds. Language relationships make a directly eastern origin of the Duala improbable. " Large-framed, sinewy, and well-developed in every limb, the Duala is a fine specimen of the genus Homo'''' [George Allan]. Allan describes the Duala as almost fastidiously clean. From the age of three or four days old, each true Duala infant must be bathed in the Cameroons River. Thenceforth it is bathed every day, either THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 31 generacy from the curses of alcohol and venerea.! disease in- troduced by Europeans. Although a fine, intelligent people, they were bloodthirsty and quarrelsome. The ruling families of Bell (Mbeli) and Akwa seem to have carried on a perpetual feud. The Bell clan occupied the south bank of the estuary near the sea. Then ensued, east of King Bell's town, a mile or so of neutral ground made uninhabitable by civil war, and eastwards ag-ain followed the towns of Kinor Akwa and his subordinate chiefs. In the early 'eighties the Duala population was esti- mated at about twenty thousand, of whom some thirteen thou- sand were slaves. A kind of middle class was formed by those who were descended from a Duala father by a slave mother, and finally there was a small aristocracy of pure Duala blood, very proud of their descent from the original " Duala da i5- carved duala stool belonging to a chief Mbeli." The smallest admixture of slave blood in a man was sufficient to con- sign him to the second class of half-breeds. This middle class led a very precarious existence in former clays, before the German rule was established. Though ostensibly free and owners of property, they could take no part in the discussion of public affairs, and if they became wealthy through trade they incurred the deadly hatred of the aristocrats, the pure Duala. In such a case they were almost invariably accused of witchcraft and killed by the poison ordeal. The thirteen thousand slaves were rather serfs than thralls, and were very seldom sold or exchanged. At that period they were easily distinguished at sight from the true Duala aristocracy, which was always of much finer physical development, and with less until it dies or is able at last to wash itself unaided. Quite a large proportion of the children were supposed to die from this water ordeal within a month of their birth ; but certainly those that survived were of very strong physique, and were able to swim soon after they could walk, and to paddle a canoe when only four or five years old. 32 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO marked negro features than the serfs or bush people under 'their control. The motives of the Duala people were mixed, when they invited the Baptists to establish a mission amongst them in 1845. The leading chiefs had a dim idea that they would like their children taught to read and write. They also thoroughly appreciated the material civilization which the Mission promised to introduce, and believed that the missionaries would attract a large volume of commerce to the country. But they desired all the same to carry on a trade in slaves. Between 1840 and 1877 there was a marked revival of the slave trade along the West Coast of Africa from Dahome to the mouth of the Congo. The southern states of North America, the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico, and the independent republics or empires of Central and South America had a pressing need for negro workers. British and French action at sea, and establishment of colonies, and also the direct influence of the United States in Liberia, had practically closed to the slavers all the coast of northern Guinea from the Senegal to the Volta. Brazilians, however, had settled in Dahome and at Lagos, and aided by one or two nefarious Englishmen and Portuo^uese half-castes, they had created flourishing slave - markets at Whydah, Lagos, at the mouth of the Cameroons, and on the Lower Congo. In the 'sixties the position of the Baptist Mission in the Cameroons was greatly endangered by the intrigues of the slavers. In fact, the life of the missionaries on the Duala shore between 1845 and 1870 was a precarious one. The Duala chiefs approved of education, but wanted " no nonsense about religion," especially any interference in sexual matters. They were annoyed because Mission converts refused to take part in initiation ceremonies or dances, especially those of an indecent character. Sometimes the women converts were seized by force and had drugs administered to them or rubbed into them, of a supposed aphrodisiac character, which, however, had only the effect of poison or inducing a state of idiocy. Others again were obliged to drink an infusion of poisonous " nuts " {Strychnos ?) as an ordeal to prove their non-complicity in cases of witchcraft. Or, if they were slaves, were savagely mutilated for listening to the Mission teaching without the consent of their masters. Saker had not been loncj settled at Bethel when King Akwa died. " Indescribable scenes of disorder, confusion, and wrong THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 33 ensued." The two elder brothers quarrelled and intrigued for the succession. The houses of the dead chief were ransacked. Even the box containing his remains was broken open and rifled of everything of value. His wives and slaves destroyed the dwelling he had occupied. The town was given up to plunder. In October the Mission premises were invaded : " Knives, spoons, forks, and table-linen, and worst of all, the flour on which life itself depended, together with the goats and fowls were carried off"^ These disorders continued till the month of December, when a British gunboat appeared on the scene, and through the intervention of the naval officers the eldest son of Akwa was declared king, and peace was re- stored. In the middle of these disputes the fifty sons of King Akwa wrangled as to the price that should be paid by Mr. Saker for the plot of land on which the Mission station stood. The amount was soon settled, but the purchase was followed by incessant bickerings amongst the vendors respecting their shares, and constant attempts were made to force more cloth and trade goods from the Mission. Three days after the pur- chase was completed, a large body of Akwa's sons and slaves collected together armed with firebrands, guns, stones, and swords, and with wild noise and shouting demanded possession of the house. Reasoning was in vain. One son in his rage split the door of the Mission house with his axe into three pieces. A week afterwards another assault on the place was made, with the result that Mrs. Saker and her little girl nearly died from mental agitation and lack of food. But at last some of the better-natured amoncrst the chiefs interfered, and a oroat was given to the Mission as some compensation for the damage. Never after this was the actual Mission station in such danger of destruction, though the work of the Mission was once or twice threatened by serious conspiracies, directed more against the destruction of the converts than the missionaries them- selves. But Saker was not easily dismayed. Almost while the naked, bloodthirsty, drunken savages"^ were battering at his doors he was plodding away at the composition of a Duala vocabulary, in fact, finishing the draft of his first class-book ' From Alfred Saker, etc. : A Biography, by Dr. E. B. Underhill, 1884. ^ The Duala people at this time and for many years afterwards were remarkable amongst the coast populations for their nudity. The Mission interfered no more with this than to inculcate some sense of decency in the men. The young unmarried women went absolutely naked down to the days of German administration, no one seeing any harm in the practice. I. — D 34 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO which was to go home to England to be printed for use in the Duala schools. By the close of 1846 Saker had made some journeys of exploration through the Basa country to the south of the Duala towns. In 1847 he describes his life thus: — " During the day I have not time to sit down to eat bread except for a few minutes at nine and five. I sit at my books, teach boys, labour with my tools. One day a carpenter, another a blacksmith, another a joiner, another a shipwright, or whatever is necessary. But my chief and all-important work at present is the study of the Duala language, the preparation of elementary books, the translation of the Gospels, etc. This comes every day, and all other things, such as necessary repairs or needful occupations, are attended to for recreation." He was passionately anxious to obtain a printing press, and made many shifts to supply one. His inventiveness, aided by a knowledge of iron work and engineering, enabled him to make a matrix and to construct a rude press, but he was soon at a standstill for lead to found type, and waited wearily for the chance of obtaining it from a passing ship. In 1848 he asked the Committee of the Society to devote a portion of his salary to the purchase of books for the foundation of a good refer- ence library. In this year he moved over for a time to Clarence, Fernando P6, partly to repair his health. Here he received his first printing press. Another was also despatched at the same time to Merrick's station at Bimbia, and native boys were being taught to print. A sugar mill was afterwards sent out by a supporter of the mission. Sir Morton Peto. Summing up the results of Mission work in Fernando P6 and the Cameroons at the end of 1849, Saker mentions that they had introduced the bread-fruit tree, pomegranate, mango, avocado pear, and mammee apple, "fruits of great value, and all suitable to the climate" (brought from the West Indies); they distributed clothing to about twenty thousand persons, and medical assistance to nearly the same number. By September 1850 Saker had again taken up his abode in King Akwa's town, and in 1851 he began to explore the slopes of the Cameroons Mountain. On returning to the Duala towns he had resolved to face and overcome the difficulty about the white ants. These termites had destroyed most of the wattle and daub and plank houses erected by the Mission. Bricks seemed the only remedy. At the very beginning of 1852 he THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 35 recorded " a complete success in making botli building bricks and paving tiles." " For some weeks past my brick yard has been in active operation. Ten thousand bricks are now ready, and we are making two thousand a week." Native boys were being sent to him for instruction in brick-making. Prior to this success his efforts had been greeted with derision by the natives, but they were now so impressed by the results of the brick yard that from that day onwards — say, the ist of January 1852 — the Duala steadily set their faces towards civilization. The actual converts to Christianity were persecuted by their countrymen, it is true, and prevented from engaging in the ordinary avenues of trade. Saker advised them to " cultivate more ground, raise and sell provisions, plant cotton, and open new sources of trade. . . . Make bricks, and I will pay you." But the possession of bricks was of little avail without mortar to cement them together. This was eventually obtained by collecting large quantities of oyster shells and burning them for lime. Though the quarrelling amongst the different factions of the Duala people and between the adherents of the too numerous chieftains still continued, the education of the Duala people went on steadily from 1852 until in 1884 the Duala banks of the Cameroons were in some respects far more like a well-ordered British colony than parts of Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast at the same period. Most of the young men of the Duala towns could speak, read, and write in English, and had a good knowledge of arithmetic. They w^ere skilled car- penters, brickmakers, printers, and agriculturists. It should be added in justice that the Mission was cordially supported in its efforts at mediation by the commanders of the British gunboats and by various consuls, who beginning with the celebrated Richard Burton succeeded one another as official repre- sentatives of British law in these regions. The work of the Mission was less fortunate in the Isubu country to the north-west of the Cameroons estuary. The people here were being rapidly exterminated by the witchcraft craze which has done so much to destroy life all over negro Africa. The negroes of primeval culture attribute most forms of death not to natural causes but to occult, to the action of witchcraft. The witch must be discovered and killed. "Doctors" freely charge anyone against whom they or the chief may have a grudge, and the accused must drink the poison water (a decoction of a nut or of bark) to determine innocence or guilt. 36 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO When the present writer was administering Nyasaland, the population of the Angoni country was diminishing as from an epidemic by the continual deaths resulting from witchcraft accusations. So in the Bimbia peninsula during the middle of the last century/ Saker writes : — The means of existence were failing ; the land ceased to be cultivated ; fishermen no longer plied their calling, incessantly harassed as they were by trials for witchcraft. The endless fighting cut off the supplies of yams and maize from the interior. If one man toiled to feed his family, his canoe was burnt and his home invaded until the devastation was complete, and hunger pined in every corner." Not only did famine ensue, but disease increased its ravages, for failure to cultivate meant the growth of bush and grass with increased harbourage for mosquitoes and the con- sequent spread of malarial fever. Although this cause of the disease was unknown to Saker, he notes the correlation of the cessation of cultivation and clearing awav of the bush with the growth of malarial fever. Consequently for a time the station at King William's town in Bimbia was given up, though it was subsequently re-estab- lished, only, however, to be finally abandoned for much the same reasons in 1870. In 1855 Saker was at last persuaded to take a holiday in England, but he scarcely remained away more than three months. By this time the steamers of the African Steamship Company had begun to ply regularly along the West Coast of Africa from Plymouth or Liverpool to Madeira, Tenerife, and Sierra Leone down to the Cameroons and the Congo. This was an extraordinary boon to missionaries as well as to the increasing number of traders, as it obviated the dreary three months' voyage out and home by way of the W^est Indies in a sailing ship.^ In 1858 Saker had to grapple with the situation in Fernando P6. The Spanish Government had withdrawn even the very grudging permission accorded to Prince, Clarke, and Saker in 1846 for the carrying on of their form of worship by stealth. 1 Poison ordeals reduced the Bimbia population from an approximate 10,000 in 1843 to scarcely 200 in 1885. — H. H. J. - Nevertheless the West Indian apprenticeship through which West Africa passed during' the first half of the nineteenth century by reason of the sailing ships having to use the Trade Wind route via the West Indies was of some service to this ill-furnished part of the world, for it enabled Government officials and missionaries to introduce from the West Indies into West Africa many useful trees and food plants. In fact this was the second American colonization of Africa (so far as fauna and flora were concerned), the first being due to the introduction by the Portuguese of Bra- zilian animals and plants between the sixteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 37 Henceforth — from 1858 onwards — there were to be no Baptist missionaries, no Baptist congregations or chapels in Fernando P6. All neoToes were to conform to the Roman Catholic faith. Consequently in that year — 1858 — Saker had decided to transfer the English-speaking Protestant colony of Port Clarence to a new territory on the mainland of the Cameroons. A good many negroes, more or less of Sierra Leone origin, declined to follow him, being too much attached to the soil of Fernando P6 to care much about religious questions. But those families who decided to leave were established along the shores of Ambas Bay on a territory purchased by the Mission from the Bakwiri and Isubu native chiefs, mostly from King William of Bimbia. A township was founded, laid out, and christened Victoria. It was intended, indeed, by the Baptist Mission to create an imitation of Liberia on the shores of Ambas Bay, a nucleus of similar free communities of negroes, but curiously enough, this project never succeeded. The vigorous work of the Baptist Missionary Society was carried on either in the Duala country along the Cameroons estuary or up the Mungo River east of the Cameroons Mountain. The scenery of Victoria was of ravishing beauty (the present writer resided at intervals on Mondole Island in face of this settlement for three years, from 1885 to 1888). The soil was productive, fish was abundant in the waters of Ambas Bay, but the negro colony of West Indian or ex-slave origin lan- guished inert for nearly thirty years until Germany acquired this last British foothold in the Cameroons in 1887. The people were quiet and law-abiding, got on well with the indigenes, but they were slothful, and rather inclined to drunkenness. Indeed, to be plain-spoken, the Baptist Mission throughout made a poor success in its devoted attempts to repatriate the Americanized negro, or even to educate the ex-slave. They only forged ahead with abundant success when dealing with native populations in a state of independence. In fact, it has been one of the undoubtedly bad results of the slave trade that it has not only caused negroes to be expatriated, snapping their family ties and all connection with their fatherland, but it has in the first generation made the same people feckless, craven, hopeless, immoral, broken-spirited, with little more ambition than a satisfaction of animal desires. The descendants of the slave parents were often well-educated, upright, decent people ; but they had become so markedly im- pressed with the European culture of America, so accustomed in physique to the American climate and American comforts, that 38 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO they wilted and lost heart and energy when transplanted to the unhealthy climate and comfortless savagery of West Africa. America had been the cause of their parents' slavery, but America was to them what Spain will always be to the Mediterranean Jew and Natal to the native of Southern India — a new fatherland infinitely dearer than the continent of their miserable past and present. In 1862 the work of the Baptist Mission in the Cameroons attracted a visit from Richard Burton, who in the preceding year had been appointed (as a not very adequate reward for his discovery of Lake Tanganyika) British Consul for Fernando P6 and the Bights of Biafra and Benin. ^ Burton had been pre- ceded as a Cameroons explorer by a celebrated botanist, Gustav Mann, a member of the British Niger Expedition, detailed by Sir William Hooker for the examination of the mountain flora of Fernando P6 and the Cameroons." Burton wished more especially to ascend the Cameroons Mountain to its highest summit, and Mann had prepared the way for this ascent by discovering sources of water supply (water, strange to say, is very deficient on the upper Cameroons), and had founded base camps from which the exploration of the higher craters might be made. Merrick, the Baptist missionary of Bimbia, had attempted to ascend Cameroons Mountain in 1847, but had not climbed higher than about 9,200 feet. The distance from Ambas Bay to the summit is about fourteen miles, but Merrick suffered greatly from the lack of water, and had to return. The Bakwiri and Buea natives along the southern slopes of the mountain were not very well disposed towards these explora- tions. Merrick had died in 1849, and Saker's presence on and around the mountain was necessary to pacify the natives and compose quarrels which had arisen between them and Mr. Mann or the followers of Captain Burton. Saker accompanied Burton on his ascent of the mountain, another member of the party, besides Mr. Mann, being Seiior Calvo, the Spanish Judge of Fernando P6 ; so that in the first ascent of the highest point in the whole of West Africa England, Germany, and Spain were represented. Saker carried out hypsometrical observations of his own which have been a useful check on those of Captain Burton and of other explorers in determining the height of Victoria Peak. 1 Earlier in the nineteenth century this post (then called Superintendent of Fer- nando P6) had been held by another African explorer, Major Denham, who had accompanied Clapperton to Lake Chad. - This remarkable pioneer of science in Western Equatorial Africa is still living, at Munich, after many years of service under the British Government, not only in West Africa, but in the Indian Forest Department. THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 41 In the period between 1863 and 1869 some trouble came into Saker's life, not only through constant deaths and sickness amongst the missionaries or their wives and children, but through friction with some of his colleaoues. This arose over two divergent opinions as to the main object of Mission work in the Cameroons. The younger members of the Mission — men recently arrived from England — complained that Saker's work lacked "spirituality" : that he devoted his life so enthusi- astically to printing, translating, language study, brick-making, carpentry, agriculture, and secular instruction that very little time was left for preaching and theology. At last, at the close of 1869, the home Committee decided to despatch Dr. E, B. Underbill to report on the almost open quarrel which had arisen between Saker and the younger missionaries. Dr. Underbill unfortun- ately lost his wife (who accompanied him) from over-exposure to the sun at the close of his stay on the Cameroons River and after a somewhat exhausting tour round all the mission stations; but his report was a triumphant vindication of Saker's methods. At this distance of time it is not necessary to take up the cudgels on Saker's behalf. The permanent civilization he intro- duced into the Cameroons is there as a witness to his life's work as well as the widespread and practically useful education he left amongst the Duala people. As to the theology which was deemed so precious in 1868, it is doubtful whether it would have been apprehended or cared for by the negroes in their then condition, and the discussion of dogmatic questions would certainly not have provided their idle hands with useful, steady- ing work. In 1874, Saker after a holiday in England returned to the Cameroons for his last sojourn, and the Baptist Mission entered on a new, and what might have been but for German interven- tion, a most successful development. George Grenfell accom- panied the veteran missionary, and in 1876 they were joined by Thomas Comber, destined like Grenfell to be one of the great pioneers on the Congo. Comber also ascended the Cameroons Mountain, and made an important journey of exploration (probably the first per- formed by any European) round the Bomboko country to the land of the Bakundu and the western affluents of the Muno^o River north of the great Cameroons volcano. He discovered and named little Lake Rickards, and the more important sheet of water Barombi ba Koto : both of them crater lakes, the last named possessing an island in the middle which was the home of thousands of grey parrots. The parrots flew over to 42 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the mainland every morning to feed on the crops and the wild fruits and returned in screaming flocks every evening to roost with security on the island trees. Comber subsequently as- cended the Mungo River for sixty miles above its confluence with the Cameroons estuary and laid the foundations of a mission station in the Bakundu country which was afterwards occupied by the Rev. Thomas Lewis. Alfred Saker left the Cameroons finally at the end of 1876, and died at Peckham in March 1880. His daughter, Miss Emily Saker, has done much to edit and amplify his remarkable linou- isticworkin theDuala language. His son- in-law, the late Rev. Ouentin Thomson — long time a worker in the Cameroons — compiled under Saker's directions a vocabulary of the Bakwiri lanofuacje at Cameroons Moun- tain. Much else of Saker's researches into Cameroons lan- Quao-es remained in manuscript in the Mission librarv at Akwa town and was destroyed (accidentally of course) when the Germans burnt the Mission buildings in their bombardment of 1884. As to outside appreciation of his life's work in the Cameroons, Livingstone wrote of him in the later 'sixties of the last century : " Take it all in all, specially having regard to its many-sidecl character, the work of Alfred Saker at Cameroons and Victoria is, in my judgment, the most remarkable on the 17. ALFRED SAKER From a photograph taken about 1873. THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 43 African coast.' Win wood Reade somewhat later recorded this further appreciation : — " I do not at all understand how the changes at Cameroons and Victoria have been brought about. Old sanguinary customs have to a large extent been abolished ; witchcraft hides itself in the forest ; the fetish superstition of the people is derided by old and young, and well-built houses are springing up on every hand. It is really marvel- lous to mark the change that has taken place in the natives in a few years only. From actual cannibals many have become honest, in- telligent, well-skilled artisans. An elementary hterature has been established, and the whole Bible translated into their own tongue, hitherto an unwritten one. There must be surely something abnormal about this." George Grenfell began his missionary exploration of these regions in 1875. By 1878 (and a short visit in 1880) he had surveyed and mapped a good deal of the southern aspect of the Cameroons Mountain, had ascended the Mungo River, the Yabiang or Abo, the VVuri or main Cameroons River, and the Lungasi (Dibamba) River.^ Most important of all, however, was his discovery in its lower course of the Edea River (as he called it), that stream which is now known by the name of Sanaga.- This is by far the longest and most important river which is part of the Cameroons system. Its main course enters the sea on either side of Malimba Island indepen- dently of the Cameroons estuary ; but with this estuary or delta it is also connected by the Kwakwa branch, so that it may be held legitimately to be one of the Cameroons rivers, and no doubt its great volume of water has in past times entered the Cameroons estuary by a more direct course, and has played an important part in the formation of that consider- able area of brackish mangrove swamps. Grenfell appears to have ascended the highest summits of the Cameroons Mountain (Mongo ma Loba) in 1878. But though he explored the Wuri (Cameroons) River to the country of Budiman (whither the present writer went a few years later), and also its Dibombe affluent, he does not seem to have observed the fantastic Kupe-Manenguba range, so strik- ing a feature on the north-eastern horizon in clear weather, ' When Grenfell went to the Lungasi River in 1877 the chief's medicine man brought a live turtle and made the party swear they had come to do no one any harm. They had to take this oath by knocking the shell of the turtle with their knuckles and calling down death on themselves if they defaulted. - Sometimes spelt Sannaga or Sananga. The word seems to be connected with a common Bantu root for river or island — S[AiNIX(; liAPTIST MISSION STATION AT SOPO, IN THE CAMEROONS (Under native missionaries.) territory as was not actually covered by the German flag. The British headquarters in this region was practically transferred to \' ictoria, Ambas Bay, a settlement which was annexed out and out, whereas much of the Cameroons territory was merely taken under British protection. Bv agreements entered into between the two Governments during the next three years, the British flag disappeared en- tirely from the Cameroons region, Ambas Bay (the govern- ment of which was administered by the present writer from 1885 to 1887) being the last portion to be handed over to German rule. THE CAMEROONS: 1845-87 61 In a native rising- which took place soon after King Bell's action was discovered (for inasmuch as this chieftain only exercised authority over six square miles, his brother chiefs strongly objected to their territories being- sold over their heads) the Germans directed their guns on King Akwa's town, where stood the principal buildings of the Baptist Mission. Some of these were shattered and ruined. Others were occu- pied as the headquarters of the German Government. In a manner which history will describe as unnecessarily brutal, the Baptist missionaries were practically expelled from 27. THE HIGHEST SUMMIT OF THE CAMEKOUNS (Sketched by the present writer in 1886.) the Cameroons by the German authorities, owing to their great influence over the people. In spite of all protests from the British Government, and a popular misconception to the opposite effect, Germany never gave one penny of compen- sation to the Baptist Mission for its vested rights in land and buildings in the Cameroons. She did not pay even for the settlement of Ambas Bay, originally purchased from the natives by the Baptist Mission and annexed by Germany in 1887. Such of the land and buildings as were not required by the German Government for its own use at Victoria were pur- chased from the English Baptists by the Basel Missionary Society of Switzerland for ^2,000. All these events occurred twenty years ago, and the last thing the present writer desires 62 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO is to reawaken old animosities. He wishes, however, in re- cording all these facts to point out that at no time did the Baptist Missionary Society embarrass the policy of the British Government, or attempt to cause bad blood between England and Germany by calling attention to the really outrageous treatment they received, or by clamouring that property ac- quired on their part by much expenditure of money and improved by many years of hard manual labour had been taken from them for ever without any excuse or compensation. With the transference to Germany of Ambas Bay in 1887 the history of the Baptist Mission in the Cameroons came to a close ; but the native church founded by the British and West Indian missionaries still exists, and receives a kindly support at the hands of the German and Swiss missionaries who have replaced the colleagues of Alfred Saker. CHAPTER IV MODERN MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN CONGOLAND IN the spring of 1877 a generous supporter of the Baptist Mission and of other philanthropic, disinterested work in Africa — Mr. Robert Arthington of Leeds ^ — had guessed prophetically at the importance of the Congo River before the results of Stanley's great exploring journey were known in the autumn of 1877. No doubt Mr. Arthington, in announcing in his letter to the Baptist Mission of May 14 1877 that the Congo and Livingstone's Lualaba were one, was influenced by the guess made in that direction by the explorer Cameron. At any rate he was certainly in advance of local opinion in Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow at that date, which took no interest whatever in the Congo, and derided any possibili- ties that might arise from its development. As the result of his generous donation to the funds of the Mission, two of the more active missionaries in the Cameroons — George Grenfell and Thomas J. Comber — were despatched to the Lower Congo to reconnoitre (January-February 1878), and returned for more elaborate exploration five months afterwards, resolving to penetrate the ancient kingdom of Kongo as far as its capital of San Salvador, and thence to push inland towards the un- known. Their first flying visit was scarcely over than there arrived the pioneers of an undenominational mission (Living- stone Inland Mission) started by Dr. Grattan Guinness of Harley House, Bow. This institution settled first at Pala- bala on the heights east of Matadi. Dr. Grattan Guinness in London and Mr. Henry Craven on the Congo produced, after some three years' study (assisted by Congo natives sent to England), the first good grammars and dictionaries of the Kishi-Kongo tongue, linguistic work which held the field until ' Mr. Arthington by his donations in 1880 to the Liberian Republic enabled that State to found the industrial colony now called Arthington, near the St. Paul's River, in western Liberia. He died in 1894, leaving large donations in trust for British missionary societies. 63 64 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the masterly, encyclopaedic studies of this important language published by Holman Bendey in 1886-7. One of the earlier recruits Dr. A. of the Harley House Sims (of Birmingham), Mission was the celebrated a medical missionary who is still serving on the Congo, who has compiled grammars and vocabularies of several Upper Concho lanouacjes, and has rendered medical service of inestimable value for twenty-seven years to some thousands of Europeans and countless negroes. o Grenfell and Comber reached the mouth of the Conoo for the second time on June 28 1878, and by the help of the great Dutch trading house with its stations at Banana and Boma, and a cer- tain John Scott,^ they ascended the river to a place called Musuko or Nsuku, some forty miles above Boma, in the narrow part of the Congo. On August 8 1878 they reached San Salvador without any difficulty, and were very well received by the King, whose official title was Ntolela, Ntinu a Lukeni, Dom Pedro V. Before he was placed on the throne in 1857 by Portuguese arms he was Elelo, " Marquis " of Katende. 28. liAOr.Ai: TRKK AT A \ - \l,\AliiiK OK LIEUT. GRANDV, 1873, AND GRENFELL CARVED I\ 1 878 (Photo by Rev. H. Ross Phillips.) SHOWING INITIALS OF COMBER AND ' This John Scott is referred to in Holman Bentley's interesting work, Pioficcn'jig on the Congo. He was in reality a St. Helena half-caste married to a Spanish wife, a noted slave-trader even as late as the 'seventies. Having no use on one occasion for about forty slaves, he fastened them all to a heavy chain and drowned them in the MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN CONGOLAND 65 By his subjects he was usually referred to as "Ntinu n'Ekongo," equivalent to " King of Congoland."' In the town of San Salvador was noticed a great baobab tree on which Lieutenant Grandy of the 1872-4 Livingstone Expedition had cut his initials. Grenfell and Comber added theirs with the date 1878. I believe the tree is still standing. From San Salvador they resolved to proceed north-eastwards to the Makuta country on their overland journey to Stanley 29. TUNGWA, REACHED BV GREM'ELL AND COMBER IN 1878 (Here Comber was wounded by a bullet in 1880.) Pool, and managed to secure the native guide who had accom- panied Grandy in 1873. The two missionaries reached the principal Makuta town, Tungwa, and, unlike Grandy, were per- Congo, just close to his main factory. Naturally, these and other circumstances were not known to the Baptist missionaries when they first reached the Congo. John Scott, who had frequently run into the bush to escape unwelcome visits from British men-of-war, endeavoured to regain a respectable reputation by offering cordial assis- tance to the first British missionaries in these regions. After Stanley's return to the Congo in 1879, Scott went to Spain, and eventually died there. The Dutch trading house at the mouth of the Congo, under whose auspices the Baptist Mission long carried on its transport on the Lower Congo, was established at Banana Point in 1869 on land bought from tlie French company, Regis et Cie. It was first known as the Afrikaansche Handels-Vereeniging, but in 1879 got into financial difficulties, and was reconstructed as the Nieuwe Afrikaansche Handels Ven- nootschap. Grenfell always refers to it as the A. H. V., the initials of the original title. 1 The Rev. T. Lewis states that Eldo is a corruption of El-Rey (the King) and means more than " marquis." I. — F 66 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO mitted to enter it and to have an audience of the chief of Tungwa, Sengele. "It was with no ordinary feelings of gladness and thankfulness" (writes Comber in 1878) "that we looked down into the largest and prettiest town we had seen in the district. . . . An irregular cluster of some 200 houses, some of them but half revealed amongst the beautiful foliage of trimly-kept trees — planted by the natives themselves as ornaments to their town — lay in the valley at our feet. ... I had never before seen a designedly pretty town in Africa, and was scarcely prepared for so much taste and neatness. The streets and squares were well kept and are probably frequently swept Regular avenues and fences of a tree bearing a pretty purple and white flower divided off the town. . . . The River Lulewa winds round the east and south." Following their guide Matoko, Comber and Grenfell were escorted by about a hundred townsmen into the centre of Tungfwa, while the drums beat a deafening welcome. " The people were in a great state of excited curiosity . . . gazing at us with that intense wondering gaze I had before encountered in interior Cameroons. One fine old woman especially interested me. She took her pipe from her mouth and looked at us long and silently, with piercing eyes . . . this old woman was nearly always amongst the crowd, constantly sitting at a respectful distance from our tent. . . . But most interesting were the children — some half-dozen boys about eight to twelve years old, with frank, open faces, bright lustrous eyes, and well-formed heads." The chiefs compound or " lumbu " ^ was fenced off by tall, straight-stemmed trees of poplar- like appearance : possibly dracaenas. His son Nsusu-a-mpembe (" the White Fowl ") came to conduct them courteously to the presence of his father [whom Comber styles the " Soba," this being the Portuguese designation of native chiefs in Angola]. " The son of the Soba made his appearance, dressed in a red and black plaid wound round his body and over his shoulders, a military coat, and a military cocked hat. He advanced slowly to the sound of drums and bugles, his people forming an avenue at his approach. When he reached within a dozen paces, he stepped briskly forward from the umbrella held over him, and lifting his hat, and making a good bow, shook hands with us. He had come to conduct us to the Soba, his father, by whom we were grandly received ; indeed, in a more stately and striking manner than by the King of Congo. He was 1 This word Lumbu often recurs in Grenfell's diaries and notes dealing with south-west Congohind. It is a word meaning stockade, fenced enclosure, and may be related to the Eastern Bantu root -umba, a house. A somewhat similar word in the Bangi and Bangala languages of the northern Congo is Ngumba. MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN CONGOLAND 67 sitting on a bamboo native chair, dressed much in the same style as his son, and was surrounded by musicians. He rose from his seat on our approach and advanced to meet us, while his band made such a deafening noise that our efforts to speak to him were in vain. The musical instruments consisted of some large drums, about six cornets and bugles, and seven ivory trumpets : these trumpets were each of a whole tusk, and gave forth very softened sweet sounds. As he had nothing but leopard skins to offer to us to sit upon, and the music was almost too much, we retired, asking him to visit us in our tent. This he did, with his son, soon after, when we explained why we had come. He thought we were traders and had come from Ambriz to buy his ivory. 30. NATIVE MUSICIANS AT TUNGWA, 187S (Photographed by Grenfell.) and seemed scarcely to believe us when we said we had never bought a single tusk, and only wanted to teach black men what was good. He had had no experience of missionaries before." The question of their being allowed to travel on beyond Tungwa to the Congo or anywhere else interiorwards was referred by Nsusu-a-mpembe to the decision of the supreme chief of the Makuta country — Bwaka-matu, who lived at Mbanza Makuta,^ about six miles farther on. Bentley records with some humour Bwaka-matu's reception of Nsusu- a-mpembe's well-meant description of the missionaries' aims ' It was at Mljanza Makuta in 1880 tliat Comber was shot in the back. 68 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO and ambitions. "Oh, they dont buy ivory? What do they want then ? Teach us about God ! Something about dying, indeed ! There is far too much of that now : people are always dying in my town. They are not coming here ... to bewitch me. Why do not the Tungwa people send them away?" So they were turned back from Tungwa and forced to retrace their steps to San Salvador, Comber proceeded to England to lay the joint report before his Mission Council.^ Grenfell, however, made his way to the Canieroons, where his second marriage took place (at Victoria). For a short time (1879) he left the service of the Baptist Mission to explore and to study African trade questions, and returned as a missionary to the Congo in 1 880. ' Early in 1879 Comber read a paper at the Ro) al Geographical Society on his Cameroons and Congo journeys (Richard Burton being present). CHAPTER V THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO BEFORE resuming" the story of missionary adventure and discovery it might be as well to sketch as briefly as possible the history of the white man's dealings with Conooland. The native kingdom of the Lower Cono-o stands first in importance as the region with the longest recorded history. It seems to have been founded early in the fourteenth century by a chief named Emini-a-nzima, who dwelt somewhere near Musuko (Nsuku), on the south bank of the Lower Congo. He was succeeded by a son, Lukeni, who began life as a lawless "Prince Hal" and ended as a wise conqueror and administrator, with his capital at the present town of San Salvador. The hilly or tableland region of Zombo and Mpemba was then named " Ekongo," apparently from the dominant Kongo tribe. The Ba-kongo or Eshi-kongo^ (as they are self-styled — the best etymology of the name seems to be "hunters") appar- ently reached their modern home by journeying up from the south-east, from the region bounded on the east by the River Kwan^o. There are other " Ba-kong-o " or " Tu-kongo " tribes of south-central Congoland which may have been originally related to the western Kongo people. The Kongo language is intimately allied to that of the inhabitants of the northern half of Angola, and less closely to the group of Bantu languages which in the south-east branches into Herero, and also more faintly to the tongues of south-central Congoland between the middle Kasai, Kwango and the territories of the Mwata Yanvo. The Kongo people are evidently one of the main offshoots of the early Bantu (Luba, Kuba) invasion of the southern half ' The etymology Eshi- is apparently A-ishi from the plural prefix A- which is a weakening of Ba- and refers to "people": coupled with the root ,?//?, nshi, meaning "country." But there is a great deal of uncertainty still as to the derivation and meaning of the particle shi, as associated with Kongo speech, and with many other racial names in W. Central Africa (Bashilange, Bashilele, etc.). 69 70 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO of Africa, an immiorati<>n which at first made a wide detour to the south and west to avoid the dense forests of the central Cono-Q basin. The orioinal Bantu vi^jour which created semi- .... ^ ^ civilization and powerful monarchies in Uganda, Ankole, south-west Nyasaland, and northern Zambezia (Mwene Mutapa), in Bakubaland, Burua, Lunda, and the regions of the upper Kwilu, penetrated as far to the north-west as the Lower Congo in its cataract region and its embouchure, the influence even stretchinor north of the Con^jo mouth to the coast-lands of Kabinda and Luansfo. o There is a sharp division between the Kongo language of the Congo, from near Stanley Pool to Kabinda, and the other Bantu dialects to the north, north-east, and east, which have reached their present localities by a different line of migration to that which has brouQ-ht the Ba-konQfo from South-Central Africa throuo-h the southern and western limits of the Conoco basin. When the Portuguese explorer Dom Diogo Cam (still remembered by name in Congoland) discovered the mouth of the Congo in 1482 he at once heard from the natives of the existence in the interior of a great "monarch," the Mani, Mwani, or Mwene 'Kongo (Lord of the Congo people),^ resident at Mbanza 'Kongo. The Portuguese exaggerated even the local importance and power of this Congo chieftain, and des- patched to him a formal embassy in 1490 under Roderigo de Souza, who was accompanied by Catholic missionaries. The King of Kongo was baptized about 1492, and Christianity nominally established as the religion of his country. In 1534 a cathedral was built under the influence of the Portuguese at the capital town (Mbanza 'Kongo), which was rechristened San Salvador; and in 1549 a Jesuit mission was established at this place. In 1570 the kingdom was overrun by a savage cannibal horde called by the Portuguese "Jagga" and by the Italian chroniclers "Giaga," who are probably not the modern Ba-yaka of the lower Kwansfo, but the Imbang-ala of the middle ' This term Mani, Miuani, or Mwene, meaning Lord, Overseer, Owner, Great Chief, is absent from Bentley's comprehensive dictionary, but certainly was in use at one time on the Lower Congo near the sea. It is a widespread Bantu word, and ac- cording to Bentley it is now reduced in Kongo to the particle 7ie. Kongo or Ekongo was never the name of the great river, in spite of its similarity to Kicango, the Bantu name of the Congo and of so many African rivers. Kwango is really Ku-angu, an infinitive, and is the name often given to the Congo itself in the cataract region, besides the great south-western affluent which drains eastern Angola. Kottgo on the other hand is a root widespread in western Bantu languages meaning " spear" and " hunter." THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 71 Kwango (Kasanje).^ An appeal was made to the King of Portugal (Dom Sebastiao), and six hundred soldiers were sent out armed with firearms. This force drove out the " Jaggas " and restored the Portuguese civilization and Christianity of the ConcTO kino'dom. Some kind of Portuguese suzerainty was then accepted by the kingdom of Kongo, but this vassalage was gradually weak- ened as Portugal itself was numbed in its power by the Spanish usurpation of the Portuguese throne ; for amongst other dis- advantages this seventy years' "captivity" entailed on Portugal 31. ANCIKM rORTUGUESE INSCRIPTION ON ROCKS ABOVE MATADI was the transference of Dutch hostility and rapacity to unfor- tunate Lusitania. The Dutch attempted to oust the Portuguese not only from the East Indies and Brazil, but also from Angola and other parts of West Africa. In various ways the Portuguese had become unpopular in San Salvador. In order ' The tribal name Yaka or Yaga crops up elsewhere in equatorial West Africa. Nevertheless it is clear from Battell's adventures some forty years earlier that the " J^bgas " came from the direction of the middle Kwango. Andrew Battell's " Mani Kesock" to whom the (Batwa) pygmies paid tribute is evidently Mwene Kasongo of Lunda. The " Jagga" raiders may have been the marauding people now known as Ba-jok, Ba-kioko, etc., still inhabiting the south-west parts of Congoland, but Purchas (AB., 84) distinctly states that their own name for themseh es was " Imbangola." Jaga was the title of a chief or leader or ruling clan, like the Jittga of old Angola. 72 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO to cope with the Dutch on the River Kwanza they transferred their forces to the coast regions of Angola, and abandoned the cathedral of San Salvador (1608) in favour of the see of Sao Paulo de Loanda, the cathedral of which important coast town had been commenced in 1575 by Dom Paulo Diaz de Novaes. The bold Dutchmen sent an embassy to the King of Kongo in 1642, during the brief time they had captured and held Sao Paulo de Loanda (1640-8). In 162 1 a mission was sent by Paul V (Bull of 21st of August 1620) to the King of Kongo at San Salvador. Pope 32. OLD PORTUGl K.-l. INm Kil l 1. 'N i 'N KmlR^ ABOVE MATADI Urban VIII in 1640 erected the Congo kingdom into an Apostolic prefecture depending on Rome directly, and des- patched in 1644 ten Italian Capuchins under Father Bonaven- tura of Alessano, who settled at " Sonho " (Sant Antonio) on the south shore of the Congo estuary, in Kakongo, San Salva- dor, and along the cataract region, perhaps as far inland as Manyanga. In 1646 a second mission started for the Congo under Father Bonaventura of Taggia ; in 1650 a third under Bonaventura of Sorrento and Geronimo of Montesarchio ; in 1 65 1 a fourth mission under Father Francois of Valence, ap- pointed Apostolical prefect of the Congo. With these Capu- chins began the second period of Congo evangelization, which THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 73 continued with much energy and some success till 1717, when the Capuchins were driven away by the natives. In 1 65 1, Father Erasmus of Furnes, a Belgian, accom- panied forty-five Capuchins to the Congo; in (about) 1653 two more Belgian fathers — Siller of Antwerp and Georges of Gheel — took part in the fifth Capuchin mission. Father Georges was killed by the natives. Between 1673 '^^^^ 1675 an independent Flemish mis- sion of Franciscan Recollets arrived from Antwerp and 33. THE RUINS OF THE WALL OF CONVENT, SAN SALVADOR, BUILT I'.V THE PORTUGUESE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Brussels, but returned in two years. This Belgian mission was commanded by Father Wauters of Antwerp, assisted by Fathers Corluy of Brussels and Cacherat (a Frenchman). In view of the recent political development of Congo history it is interesting to note these first appearances of Belgians in the Congo drama, especially as one of them — Georges — became a martyr to his propagandist zeal. Pope Innocent X sent a special embassy to the Kongo kingdom in 1652 ; and his successors on the papal throne occupied themselves assiduously with Congo affairs until they became disheartened by the expulsion of the Capuchins in 1717. 74 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Among the notable Italians who carried on a Christian propa- ganda in western Congoland, the following names deserve to be again recorded, from the special point of view of this book (contributions to human knowledge) : Father Giacinto Brus- ciotto of Vetralla (one time Prefect of the Apostolic Mission), who in [650 and 1659 published at Rome works on the Kongo language — a vocabulary of Kongo with parallel columns of Latin, Portuguese, and Italian, and later, a Latin grammar of Kongo^ [the earliest record of the Kongo language was the translation of a Portuguese religious treatise printed at Lisbon in 1624]; and Fathers Cavazzi of Montecucollo (1687). Merolla of Sorrento (1692), and Zucchelli (17 12), wlio all wrote treatises on the manners and customs of the Lower Congro and Angola peoples. In the early eighteenth century, at the close of the reign of Louis XIV, the French Government had not only attempted to create political interests in the Far East through religious missions, but aspired to replace the Portuguese missionaries in Abyssinia (for the same political purpose), and even on the Lower Congo. In fact, a direct French influence in Congo- land certainly began in the eighteenth century. The Pope was induced to sanction a French Roman Catholic mission in 1760. The Abbe Belgarde was appointed by the propaganda "prefect of the mission of Loango, Cacongo, and other kingdoms on this side of the Zaire," and arrived on the Luango coast in 1766. He was accompanied amongst others by the Abbe Proyart, who in 1776 wrote a History of Loango, with a vocabulary of the Kakongo dialect. There is no clear record as to what caused the fading away of this French missionary effort, but it does not seem to have lasted more than eight years. In 1772 a French-Kongo dictionary of about one thousand words, apparently of the Kakongo dialect, was compiled at Paris, and found its way in MS. to the British Museum Library, where it still is. The last expedition of Italian missionaries (Barbadini) reached San Salvador in 1778, but did not settle there. In 1781 final attempt was made by the Franciscans to establish a mis- sion at Sonyo (Lower Congo) under the protection of Portugal. Father Raffaelle di Castello led this forlorn hope, which attempted to reopen relations with the King of San Salvador. But native hostility had been increasing, and the missionaries — Italian, French, and Portuguese — withdrew completely from ' Of which a translation was made and pubhshed by Dr. H. Grattan Guinness in 1880. THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 75 this region in 1782, though some vestiges of the mission remained on the Luango coast till 1800. Father B. M. de Cannecattim, a Portuguese Capuchin, possibly had something to do with the remains of the Luango mission. He published in Loanda (?) in 1804 a Portuguese- Latin- Kongo- Bunda vocabulary. The Kongo kingdom of San Salvador was not revisited by Europeans until 1857, when the German explorer, Dr. Bastian, made his way to the capital. In 1859 (to 1866) a Portuguese military force occupied San Salvador to put down civil war and establish on the throne Dom Pedro V, whom the Baptist missionaries found still reigning in 1878. [He died in ^^91-] ... Christianity in a rather gross form certainly obtained a very strong hold over the Kongo people in the district round San Salvador. A King of Kongo — Don Garcia — became, accord- ing to the accounts of the Capuchins — extremely devout in the latter part of the seventeenth century. He had, as he believed, owed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin not only the birth of a son when he was despairing of an heir, but the restoration of that son to his arms after he had been captured as a hostage by the "Count" of Sonyo. The "Count" of Sonyo was the chieftain over a small district (probably still known to the natives as Sonyo, a corruption of San Antonio) on the south bank of the Congo estuary near the sea. The priests of the seventeenth century carried to Congoland the political ideas of that Italy which had fallen from the grand political freedom and culture of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the base condition in which it lay during the seven- teenth and eighteenth — Duchies and Grand Duchies in place of Free Cities and Republics. So the kingdom of Kongo, which was probably at its most powerful a confederation of native chieftainships north and south of the Lower Congo, owning a vague reverence or allegiance to the oldest-estab- lished of the chieftainships at Mbanza (San Salvador), was divided up by Italian and Portuguese geographers (whom the French and Flemish copied) into Countships, Grand Duchies, Dukedoms, and Principalities. Some virago who had got herself recognized as the chieftainess over a dozen villages of reed huts was styled the Duchess of Bata. The headman of a market town became the Marquis of Pemba, and so on. When the Portuguese had somewhat recovered their posi- tion in Angola, and the Dutch had abandoned that part of Africa, they attempted to reassert their suzerainty over the Kongo kingdom, as their suspicions of French intentions were 76 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO somewhat aroused. They succeeded in conquering the regions near the coast. By 1784 they had attempted to assert their domination north of the Congo mouth by building a small fort at Kabinda ; but France, who had already no doubt formulated plans of African conquest (pushed aside by the French Revolu- tion), sternly forbade these pretensions, and the French naval commander, the Marquis de Marigny, drove away the Portu- guese from Kabinda in 1 786. Portugal was too much involved in the Napoleonic wars to make any further move in this direction.' After Waterloo and St. Helena, British ambitions as re- gards West African discovery and political occupation were aroused, and Great Britain joined with France in forbidding an extension of Portuguese rule north of the Ambriz (Mbirizi River) at Kinsembo. Kinsembo, in fact, remained the ne phis ultra of the Portuguese down to 1884. As to the supposed knowledge on the part of Portuguese explorers and merchants, or of Jesuit or Capuchin missionaries, concerning the far interior of Congoland prior to 1877, it was certainly limited. They had some acquaintance with the general character of the Congo stream as far inland as Man- yanga, or the limits of the Basundi country. They knew the plateau region east of San Salvador, and had penetrated south- eastwards to the Kw^anofo River. The Portuguese in fact reached the Kwango direct from Angola early in the seventeenth century, and effected something like a revolution in the tastes, civilization, and wars of southern Congoland. This wmU be referred to later in describino- the reg^ions of the Kasai basin. But from some cause not clearly explained, Portuguese civiliza- tion did not "catch on" with the more savage people of Stanley Pool or of the Central Congo basin. Their progress north- wards down the Kasai and Kwango was stopped by rapids. - One or two of their traders, and possibly a missionary, may have reached the shores of Stanley Pool,' but no hint of this ' As a matter of fact she was still full of energ)' and ambition regarding Africa, and though the ally of England in Europe, she was much disturbed by new British ambitions in Africa. The seizing of the Cape of Good Hope by a British force in 1796 at once caused Portugal to attempt on a very bold scale the annexation of all the regions between Angola and Mozambique, and the exploration of the interior in search of the rumoured Great Lakes. It was announced at the time, that this was done deliberately with a view to cutting off the British from the formation of an empire which would extend from Cape Town to the Mediterranean. Dr. Lacerda, the great Portuguese explorer who conducted this expedition (and died before it was fully accomplished), actually predicted that the eventual result of the British establishment at the Cape of Good Hope would be a Cape-to-Cairo dominion I - In about 1622 five Portuguese slave traders started for the kingdom of Makoko (Stanley Pool). They were attacked and plundered by the wild natives, but after fortuitous plagues of famine and disease the natives \oluntarily set them free and restored their goods. THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 77 lake-like resei"voir of the Lower Congo beyond the terraced moitntains of the coast was ever recorded by Portuguese geographers. They apparently only travelled as far as the influence of the King of Kongo extended, to the vicinity perhaps, but not to the actual waters, of Stanley Pool (which they called the country of the Makoko). The native middle- men or the more adventurous amongst the European traders brought back news of an important people called the Anzico, or in the Italian rendering, the " Anzichi " (pronounced Antsiki). These Anzico, Anzicanas, or Anzeques, were gov- erned by a chief called the Great Makoko. This title is obviously the same as the Makoko of Mbe, the great chief of the " Bateke," who, more than two hundred years later, gave such a cordial reception to De Brazza and the Trench flag. Moreover, the name Anzico, etc., is probably a corruption of " Banseke," a term used by the Basundi and other Kongo people near Stanley Pool to describe the " Bushmen," the people of the interior. Possibly this, or a similar term, was akin to the tribal name " Bateke," which was given by Stanley in 1877 to the confederation of tribes that occupy the north and south coasts of Stanley Pool. The " Bateke " do not apply this name to themselves ; apparently their own designation is At 10 or Bateo. The root -tcke sometimes means " Pygmy." Portuguese travellers discovered the upper Kasai River at the close of the eighteenth century, and this together with the Kwango and of course the delineation of Angola were the only contributions made by them to Congo geography before the days of Livingstone; though their civilizing influence and even words of their language were carried right across the southern basin of the Congo and north - eastwards along its main stream. In 1877 Stanley discovered four old Portuguese muskets in a village on the Congo (Rubunga) just at its north- ernmost bend. It was here that the word " Kongo" first came to his ears. The vaunted Portuguese maps of the seventeenth century, with their Flemish and French repetitions of the eighteenth, combined with the more or less correct geography of Angola a ridiculous and impossible mixture of the river systems of Abyssinia and the Lower Zambezi, joined to the Ptolemaic traditions of Central African lakes. In fact, in these maps the waters of the Nile, the Congo, and the Zambezi were united by natural canals in defiance of the laws of hydrostatics. Nevertheless the Portuguese intervention in western and southern Congo history endowed tiie whole basin of that 78 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO mighty river with food products and weapons which profoundly affected its human development. To a region, hitherto only knowing" as sustenance plantains, leaves, fungi, palm-shoots, beans, palm-nuts, and fish ; human flesh, the flesh of rare domestic goats, sheep, fowls, and dogs, or of a few big wild beasts occasionally and with difficulty killed, or of small beasts or birds cauoht in snares: the Portuouese introduced the domestic pig and the European ox, and that succulent " Muscovy " duck, a Brazilian bird which has travelled rioht across Africa from the Congo to Mocambique ; they brought (to a part of Africa poorly supplied with cultivated plants) such a variety of vege- table food -stuffs as the manioc, ground-nut, maize, capsi- cum, sweet potato, pineapple, guava, orange, lime, sugar-cane, tomato, and papaw. The tobacco introduced by the Portuguese has contended successfully against the stupefying" or maddening hemp which has entered Congoland from the far Muhammadan north-east. Though unsuccessful in civilizing" the Lower Congo they have built up free, intelligent, educated native communities in northern Angola and on the central Kwango (like the Ambaquistas), whose enterprising trade journeys led to the first intelliorent crossinos of Africa from west to east. Portuoal has played a great part for good and ill in Congo history. The first Britisher to visit these reoions was an Essex sailor o of Leigh, near Southend, Andrew Battel!, who somewhere about 1 5 1 5 shipped on a voyage of discovery towards America, got shipwrecked on the coast of Brazil, was eventually rescued by a Portuguese ship and retained for years on board as a kind of prisoner at large, lest he should communicate geographical knowledge to his fellow-countrymen. Battell accompanied this ship therefore in her voyages backwards and forwards to the Angola coast about Benguela. Here the country was being ravaged by the mysterious cannibal horde of the Jaggas [Giagas], already referred to in the history of the Kongo kingdom. Battell was eventual! V left with the "Giao-as" as a hostage, and in their company saw much of southern Angola. In all he seems to have spent nearly eighteen years south of the Kwanza River or off the coast of Congo and Luanoo: though his narrative is rather con- fusing" and does not always distinguish between hearsay and personal experience. But he brought back definite accounts of the pygmies of Congoland and the great apes of the Luango coast, whom he calls " Pongoes," a name still applied in that region to the chimpanzee. The British, however, gave no great heed to the Congo until CapLopo ' Ude Gabok ou Po:nco emeaJe 'yas^aux du Or .^ac^co ct i'crir*-^ ROYAUME DU MaCOCO ^J^^VS DKS AmBOKS I I I A u E xL O ANA> o OUV_^ ATST 21 c o M.ONS OtES\ — Gr Cajc lie Zaire c^v^a Ro'wv.uME, ^ JOE ComG( IdtZoa CooMta J uila r PY"""3)X Matamb> r I J^'^'"^, I An G _Q/L A>^>ipci>ba ROYAUME d'Abutua T,OH OA 1 11^* DE IMatama:^ a* I place n£ 4:^tnf ces ^uar^ns mais i£?nt la ■Si/ualton. 7 ^ t OY. deMATsa C A/ I 34. A MAP OF THE CONGO REGIONS PUBLISHED AT AMSTERDAM IN 1733 IN THE ATLAS OF GUILLAUME DE L'iSLE (PUBLISHERS, JAN COVENS AND CORNEILLE MORTIER) This map represents the utmost information ever given to the world by the Portuguese, Italian, French, and Flemish explorers (mainly missionaries) down to the middle of the eighteenth century. 8o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the close of the eighteenth century. About this time they were beginning to search for the sea outlet of the mysterious Niger, which rose behind Senegambia and flowed eastward. Some thought it might describe an enormous curve and reach the sea through the Lower Congo. A Captain Maxwell of the British Navy (which had begun to cruise along the coast of Lower Guinea from 1783) surveyed the Lower Congo with consider- able care and accuracy from its mouth to Boma and Noki in 1793- When the Napoleonic wars were over, in 18 16, the British Government despatched Captain J. K. Tuckey, r.n., with a well-staffed expedition to explore the Congo from its mouth upwards, there being a strong belief at that period that the Congo was the real outlet of the Niger. The expedition only got as far as Isangila. Tuckey and seventeen of the officers and men died of fever, and the only effective results were the biological (chiefly botanic) collections of the botanist Christian Smith (who also contributed a short study of the Congo language and ethnography).^ In 1827-9 H.M.SS. Levin and BarracoiUa of Captain Owen's great African coast-exploring expedition surveyed the estuarine Congo. Captain Hunt in 1857 carried on the survey to IVIatadi, and the great explorer Richard Burton penetrated a few miles farther (describing Yalala Falls) in 1863.- During the 'thirties and 'forties of the last century British energies in West Africa were mainly occupied with projects both benevolent and practical in connection with the Niger and the Niger coast. At the end of the forties, however, a strong impulsion of missionary energy took place in South Africa, chiefly in connection with the London Missionary Society, which has played such a very large part — I think I might say without exaggeration a magnificent part — in the opening up of all South-Central Africa from Cape Town to Tanganyika and the southern limits of the Congo basin. Foremost amongst the agents of this society was David Livingstone, who, assisted a good deal by the generosity and companionship of W. Cotton Oswell (the Selous of his day), not only discovered Lake Ngami, the Victoria Falls, and the Upper Zambezi, but, with the doubtful exception of earlier Portuguese travellers, was the first to reveal to us the upper Kasai River under that name or Kasabi. Livingstone explored part of the Kwango, and ' One of the skulls of Congo natives illustrated in this book was collected by the Tuckey Expedition. - About the time Owen's expedition was off the Congo coast a Frenchman, Dou- ville, is supposed to have been exploring the interior, but Douville's book published in 1832 is full of fictitious episodes. THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 8i reached the Atlantic at St. Paul de Loanda, thence travelHng back through the south-western Hmits of the ConQO basin to the Upper Zambezi, and tracin:^- that river in its essential features down to the Indian Ocean. This wonderful journey on his part had a direct effect on Congo history. It led Livingstone back as an explorer and a Consul to the Zambezi basin and Lake Nyasa, but he never rested until he passed beyond the basin of the Zambezi to explore the mys- teries of what he considered were the upper waters of the Nile. All those stories of great lakes lying to the west and north-west of Lake Nyasa beyond ranges of plateau- mountains coin- cided, in his opin- ion, with the ex- travagant ideas of seventeenth - cen- tury Portuguese geography, ideas which had dragged the mountains, lakes, and kingdoms of Abyssinia twenty degrees too far south, Livingstone discovered the Chambezi, Bangweulu, the south end of Tanganyika (already the north end had been discovered by Burton and Speke in 1857), Lake Mweru and the Luapula in 1867, Lake Bangweulu in 1868, and after crossing and recrossing Tanganyika had reached Nyangwe, on the Lualaba- 187 1 ; this river he believed to be the Albertine Livingstone died at Chitambo's to the south of Lake Bangweulu, just within the basin of the Congo. Before he was known to have been relieved by Stanley the Royal Geographical Society of London had despatched two I. — G 35. TREE UNDER WHICH LIVINGSTONE'S HEART WAS BURIED AT THE VILLAGE OF CHITAMBO Congo, m Nile. 82 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO expeditions to his assistance. One under Cameron departed from Zanzibar and the East Coast ; the other under Lieutenant Grandy, r.n., was sent out to the mouth of the Congo. For, although Livingstone still clung to his Nile theory, the geo- graphical world was more and more inclined to link the mighty Lualaba with the unknown course of the Congro. Grandy reached San Salvador in 1873, and made a futile attempt to push his way north-eastwards past the cataracts of the Congo. His journey was arrested, however, at the same place, Tungwa, as that where Grenfell and Comber's pioneer- ing expedition was stopped in 1878, and near where Comber was shot and obliged to turn back in 1880. Cameron's journey had infinitely greater results, was, in fact, one of the turning-points in recent African history. Cameron reached Nyangwe, but, guided by the advice of the Arabs, deemed it impossible with his attenuated expedition to force his way past the cataracts of the Lualaba northwards. He left Nyangwe to journey by the line of least resistance to the Atlantic coast, but quitted the Lualaba with the emphatic conviction that it was none other than the main Congo. Consequently, the map he published in 1875 on his return, though it omitted the great northerly bend of the river, was the first indication coming anywhere near reality of the approximate course of this mighty river. Hitherto the Congo, in spite of the enormous depths of its estuarine course and the volume of fresh water exceed- ing that of any other African river which it poured into the Atlantic, had been represented on all maps as little else than the lower course of the Kwanoo, of which the Kasai was made an affluent. Cameron's journey produced remarkable political results. Firstly, it placed definitely before the British Government the option of assuming a Protectorate over the inner basin of the Con^o founded on Cameron's legitimate treaties with the chiefs. (This proposal, owing to the opposition of Manchester and Liverpool, was abruptly dismissed.) Secondly, it stirred up the Portuguese to great activity in African exploration, so that before it was too late they might unite across Africa the provinces of Angola and Mozambique. Thirdly, it suggested to the King of the Belgians an international movement with its home in Brussels which would relieve England ot the self- imposed charge (alternately assumed and put on one side ac- cording as the national pride and purse demanded) ot policing and civilizing Africa. Whilst these eventualities were being discussed came the THE MODERN HISTORY OF THE CONGO 83 levin stroke of Stanley's journey clown the Congo from Nyangwe to the sea. The revival of the slave trade during the third quarter of the nineteenth century had obliged the British men-of-war off the West Coast of Africa to take a great interest in the Congo, especially between 1870 and 1875. Besides the attempts to prevent the export of slaves, British naval forces had to put down a serious state of piracy. The increasing profits of trade on the Lower Congo, and the establishment of French, Dutch, British, and Portuguese trading stations in a land owning no allegiance to any European Power, had offered inducements to enterprising natives or ex-slavers — mongrels and outcasts with a dash of European blood — to turn pirate. These Congo pirates lurked in the numerous creeks between the islands of the estuarine Congo and the mainland. When strong enough, they attacked isolated trading stations, or boats or small steamers passing up or down the Congo. The late Admiral Sir William Hewett distinguished himself by his bravery in putting down this piracy, which he had completely suppressed in 1875. By this time the Congo coast had become particularly English in sympathies, owing to the constant and lucrative visits of British men-of-war. The English language in a corrupt form was the common medium of trading intercourse between the Cameroons and Banana Point, while on the other hand Portuguese was the universal medium of communication south of the north Congo bank. In fact, so strong had British influence become In these waters that when Stanley emerged at Boma in 1877, completing the work half done by Cameron, most people out in West Africa concluded that a British Pro- tectorate over the Congo basin and the north bank of the Lower Congo would inevitably follow.^ But the work of the King of the Belgians had attracted the attention of other European Powers to African possibilities. The German African Society had been founded in 1873. As early as 1875 a German traveller (Capt. von Homeyer) had proposed the annexation of the Congo by Germany. German explorers — Pogge, and, later, Reichardt, Bohm, and Kaiser — had explored and mapped the countries south-west of Tangan- yika, and had crossed and recrossed southern Congoland. A ' It is said that the King of the Belgians at first was so absolutely certain that Britain would take up Stanley's and Cameron's discoveries as a national affair that he waited until November 1S78 before forming his own plans for utilizing Stanley's discoveries. 84 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO German scientific expedition under Dr. Pechuel-Loesche had spent some two years (rather fruitlessly, be it remarked) on the Luango coast. France, as soon as she had recovered from the shock of the German War, had begun to explore the hinter- land of the Gaboon, and had despatched under international guise De Brazza to feel his way towards the Upper Congo. The Dutch, owing to their great commercial success on the Lower Congo, had begun to dream of a new Dutch West Africa. Portugal had determined to extend her rule, in spite of British prohibitions, to the south bank of the Congo, and to secure the empire of the Mwata Yanvo. Who would have thought at this juncture, to quote a well-known fable without any offensive intent, that whilst all the first and second-class Powers of the Old World were fencing as to who migrht annex the Cong^o basin, this richest prize of Africa should be carried off by Reynard, by the astute ruler of a tiny northern state, and with no African trade, no fleet, and no colonial ambitions ? Stanley's return to Europe in 1878 did not find the British Government of that day in a mood to embark on Congo enter- prise. The Nearer East was not yet pacified, we were blushing a little at the rather odd trick by which we had acquired Cyprus ; later we feared complications in regard to Afghanistan, and the Zulu cloud was gathering to burst. In addition to all this, to have outrage France, Germany, Portugal, and Holland, and to have pledged ourselves to an expense of many millions by "protecting" the basin of the Congo, would have been an act of unwisdom. We were content therefore to let the King of the Belgians have a free hand, especially as he entrusted the commission to a Welshman. Another element also had entered the problem of Congo development. The Arabs of Zanzibar had discovered the Lualaba-Congo and the Lomami about 1865-6. The Nubian and Sudanese- Arab traders, carrying with them here an Italian and there a great German explorer like Schweinfurth, at much the same period had crossed the watershed of the Nile in the regrion of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and had entered that of the Wele- Muban^i, the northern limits of the Cono;o basin. This therefore was the juncture reached by Congo history m 1878-9 when Grenfell and Comber were attempting in vain to pass through the hostile middlemen to Stanley Pool. The forces of the Caucasian were converging on the Congo basin from all directions. CHAPTER VI SAN SALVADOR AND STANLEY POOL OLLOWING on Comber's report to the Home Com- mittee at the beginning of 1879 the Baptist Mission in Congoland was definitely organized. In June 1879 a great expedition reached the Lower Congo, including, besides Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Comber, W. Holman Bentley,^ and, among others, H. E. Crudgington and John S. Hartland. " When we reached San Salvador in 1879," writes Bentley, "it was to all intents and purposes a heathen land. King and people were wholly given to fetishism and all the superstitions and cruelties of the Dark Continent. Some ruined walls of the Cathedral remained, the chancel arch, and part of a Lady chapel — the sad relics of a failure. In a house in the King's compound were kept a large crucifix and some images of saints, but they were only the King's fetishes. If the rains were insufficient they were sometimes brought out and carried round the town. Some old people about the country called themselves Minkwikizi — ' Believers ' — in some of whom there seemed to have lingered faint glimmerings of such light as had been brought in the old times. At the funeral of a iminkivikizi there were always some special ceremonies, marks of crosses on the shroud, sprinkling of water, etc., which only a munkwikizi could perform ; they were, in fact, a caste of masters of the ceremonies at great funerals, and very little else." " The best case I have heard of was that of the old uncle of NIemvo, the young man who has helped me in all my literary work. This old man had a small brass crucifix — his ' Christo ' — to which he prayed every day, asking a blessing on himself and people. Later on, when he was dying, too weak to raise himself, he had the crucifix stuck up on the wall beside his bed, where he could see it, and there he lay dying, sure ^ The Rev. Dr. W. Holman Bentley, who died at Bristol in 1905, was one of the most notable of the Baptist missionaries on the Congo, and of considerable reputa- tion as an African explorer and philologist. He has written two travel books of great merit, especially the work published in 1900, Pioneering on the Congo. He published a grammar and dictionary of the Kongo language in 1886; but it is by his more extended Dictionary and Grammar of 1887 that he will be permanently remem- bered. For this truly remarkable book, packed like his Pioneering from end to end with original, terse, sound information, the discriminating University of Glasgow con- ferred on him the Doctor's hood in 1902. 85 86 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO in his heart that his Christo would take him safely to heaven. Sub- sequently, when we were holding our services at San Salvador, on two occasions after the sermon, have people, visitors to the town, risen to urge the people to listen to the teaching and to receive it ; for old relatives had told them long before of a Saviour who died for all, and now the same story was brought to them again by us. Once a man, and the other time a woman, gave this testimony." " A flat wooden cross, about 2 feet long, 4 inches broad, is the common fetish which confers skill in hunt- ing. It is called santii {santa cruz, 'holy cross'), and when- ever the possessor of a smitu kills an animal its blood is daubed on the santu. It is said that a sa?itu loses its power if the possessor is guilty of any immorality ; in such case a fine has to be paid and a ceremony gone through before its power can be restored by a doctor of santu. This association of the necessity of a pure life with the effective possession of a cross is an interesting relic of the old teaching. Old crucifixes are to be found amongst the insignia of some chiefs ; and now and then a Portuguese missal." There must have 36. IMAGE OF CHRIM FOUXD AT SAN SALVADOR, i 1- . • .'i USED AS A FETISH. SOME TWO OR THREE Dccn soiTie lingering laea HUNDRED YEARS OLD of Portuouesc sover- eignty at San Salvador even in 1879, because when the second Baptist expedition was starting- thither from Musuko in July 1877 the King of San Salvador sent to say that if they were coming to "live always " at his capital they ought first to obtain permission from the Portuguese Governor at Loanda. However, to do SAN SALVADOR AND STANLEY POOL 87 so would have been to have admitted the rights of Portugal in that region, which was not then a thing desired by the Baptist Mission, whose representatives in those days dreaded the ex- tension of Portuguese influence, believing that Portugal would treat Protestant missions as Spain had dealt with the Baptists and Methodists of Fernando P6.^ When the expedition under Comber and Bentley approached the city of San Salvador a large escort came to meet them waving the King's flag. " There was something remarkable about that flag ; it was a gold five-pointed star on a dark-blue ground. . . . When Stanley arrived he adopted that identical design for the flag of his expedition (because it represented the lone star of the Federated States under whom he had fought as a volunteer in America). It afterwards became the flag of the Congo Independent State." [The flag itself had been designed by Mr. de Bloeme, the celebrated Dutch Consul, and long-time General Manager of the Dutch House at Banana Point.] " As we neared the capital, crowds of people came to meet us, guns were fired, and shouts of joy were raised. We entered the town and sat down close to where we afterwards built the Mission House." The King of Kongo (Dom Pedro V) was a huge man, only five feet six inches in height, but very fat, dressed in a varie- gated jersey and mantle of scarlet cloth, with an old solar topi (pith helmet) on his head, and a crucifix and sceptre in his hand. Then followed the usual period of reaction — fevers to which these neophytes were unfamiliar. Just a month after their arrival Mrs. Comber died. But in spite of this blow and several other disappointments, their reception by the King of Kongo was so cordial that it was impossible to feel discouraged. San Salvador in 1879 was a town of about two hundred houses of grass and sticks, built on a plateau 1 800 feet above sea-level, a plateau nearly everywhere descending abruptly into valleys two hundred feet below. Amidst the tangled vegetation of the outskirts of the town could be traced the masonry of the ancient walls, fifteen to twenty feet high, built of great lumps of haematite iron ore and slabs of limestone. ' As an antidote to Portugal, the Baptist Mission supported warmly from the start Stanley's enterprise and the creation of the Congo Free State under the King of the Belgians. It is curious to note, however, that although the Portuguese took possession of nearly all the Lower Congo and the kingdom of San Salvador in 1884, the Baptist missionaries have little or nothing but praise to record of the action of the Portuguese in regard to religious liberty and educational and other facilities accorded to mission work. There has been the same story with the American Protestant missions in .Angola. Portugal long ago advanced towards the goal of religious liberty to an extent far ahead of that which Spain has achieved either at home or abroad. 88 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The cathedral in the middle of the town was built of the same materials. In 1879 (according to Bentley) the west front had fallen and the roof had long- ago disappeared, but the other walls were fairly preserved, especially the chancel. The chancel arch was a fine span of large dressed stones. The high altar was covered with small ferns, but in fair condition. There was a Lady chapel on the north side of the nave, and a vestry on the south side of the chancel ; three hundred to four hundred yards to the west were the extensive ruins of a convent, and in 37. RUINS OF CHAN'CEL ARCH OF ANCIENT PORTUGUESE CATHEDRAL AT SAN SALVADOR various places in the jungle were to be found groups of stones which marked the sites of ancient buildinos. Near the west front of the cathedral were the Qraves of the old king-s and notables. The missionaries at first lived in grass houses, but towards the close of 1879 commenced to build houses of stone just inside the city wall, borrowing for the purpose some loose stone from the ruins in the jungle. Limestone of fair quality crops out in the rock formations near the River Luezi, and here also was an old lime-kiln which had been used by the Portuguese. In his work Pioneering on the Congo Bentley describes how in order to get the limestone to the kiln (a journey of two miles SAN SALVADOR AND STANLEY POOL 89 down the river) they had first of all to fell a lofty bonibax tree and get the natives to burn it and adze it into a dug-out canoe, then to blast the rock with gunpowder and send the limestone in fragments two miles up-river in this roughly made canoe. Two of their Cameroons men became stone-mason and carpenter. They found that "personal supervision was neces- sary in every branch of the work." Three days' work was done in one day when they were about, and with far more fun and brightness. Needless to say, the missionaries worked 30. A i;koUl" lU-- fo.NCO l'H)N"KKK> AT .Ml'Sl'K.o- HAkll.ANM, CKL'l » U Ni iTON, COMBER, MR. , A TRADER, MR. GRESHOFF (AN AGENT OF THE DUTCH house), MRS. GRENFELL, AND HOLMAN BENTLEY harder than their black assistants, and each party interchanged knowledge, African ideas being interwoven with English notions in the making of the grass-thatched, rough stone house with the rude joinery of its doorways and window- frames. The house was finished by the spring of 1880. The three missionaries — Comber, Bentley, and Crudgington — soon be- came objects of interest and speculation, not so much in San Salvador, where king and people had rapidly got used to them, but throughout all the surrounding country, amongst all the trading people who came from far-distant markets in the interior to exchange their produce against the goods of the 90 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO white man, brought by Konoo traders from the Lower River or the port of Ambriz. A ferment was in the country, the white man was battering at the barrier which had so long shut out the inner basin of the Congo from his direct access and knowledo^e. Only a few days after Bentley and his party had left Musuko for San Salvador Stanley had arrived from Zanzibar for the great expedition that was to build a road past the cata- racts of the Congo and place a steamer on the Upper River at Stanley Pool, the expedition under the Comite d'Etudes du Haut Congo that was to found the Cono-o Free State. The " middlemen " — the tribes of Kongo speech that inhabited the cataracts region between San Salvador and Stanley Pool — were aflame at the threatened breach of their privileges. Except for Stanley's wild rush down the river in 1877 and out into the white man's region of Boma and the estuary, no force had as yet challenged the right of the middlemen to control the trade — chiefly in ivory and palm kernels — between the regions of the Upper Congo converging to Stanley Pool and the Congo coast and estuary where the white man's trading stations were situated. Added to this, there were already national and religious jealousies arising among the European nationalities in refer- ence to the Conoco. Pioneering on the Congro, both relio^ious and secular, was rapidly drifting into two camps, French and English. The French Roman Catholic missionaries^ estab- lished at Landana on the Luanoro coast under Pere Carrie had attempted eleven years before to settle at San Salvador, but had been prevented by sickness and other difficulties. Pere Carrie wrote a letter to the King of San Salvador which is published in Dr. Bentley 's book, but which except for this brief reference is best consigned to oblivion, as the man who wrote it must have long since felt ashamed of such an action. The Baptist missionaries were described as "unclean and per- verse men preaching an unclean and perverse doctrine," and the King was urged to expel them. Perhaps the pleasantest episode in connection with this incident was that Bentley some time afterwards called on Monseigneur Carrie at Boma, and they not only became but remained friends. Three other nationalities were involved in this struggle for the Congo, this zeal for its exploitation, commercial or political. ^ Of a combined Jesuit and undenominational organization styled the Mission of the Holy Ghost and of the Sacred Heart of Mary. It was to this Mission that the great traveller Pere Duparquet belonged. SAN SALVADOR AND STANLEY POOL 91 But the great protagonists were England and France. Erance, as already related, had had her eyes on the Congo since the beginning of the eighteenth century. Erench missionaries had worked with some success on the Kakongo and Luango coast in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the Abbe Proyart in the second half of the eighteenth century had written disparagingly of the Portuguese as very anti-Christian in their dealinofs with the natives. On the other hand, since Captain Maxwell's survey of the Lower Congo in 1796, Great Britain had kept an eye on the Congo. British naval force in an increasing degree down to 1875 had administered rough justice between traders and merchants on the Lower Congo, and had lost some lives and expended much powder and shot in putting down the slave trade and the misdeeds of piratical natives. Stanley, moreover, though calling himself an American, was known to be a Welshman, and it was not conceived possible that the King of the Belgians could really be shaping a Belgian colony, or that any idea of a "huge Liberia " — an immense Native State in the Congo basin — was feasible. Stanley therefore, on returning in 1879, could only be working for Great Britain in disguise. Already Erance was in the field on the Upper Congo in the person of De Brazza. The Portuguese, moreover, were doggedly determined either by agreement with Great Britain or with Erance that they would at any rate extend their rule up to the south bank of the Lower ConQO. Then there was the o-reat Dutch trading house, which since 1869 had grown to be the strongest commercial organiza- tion on the Lower Congo. The Dutch resented the idea of Portuguese annexation lest it should mean the extension of that fiscal system which so cruelly fettered the trade of Angola. They hoped perhaps that in the clash of big nations Holland might be allowed to re-establish herself on that West African coast which she had abandoned as a ruling power in 1873.^ Then there was Germany. A German expedition had been studying scientifically the Luango coast in the early 'seventies. German explorers had, at the same period, crossed Tanganyika and had also penetrated southern Congoland from the west. So that when in 1879-80 Thomas Comber, accompanied by Crudgington or Hartland, made his three attempts at a rush to Stanley Pool through the Makuta district south of the ^ When the Dutch possessions on the Gold Coast were ceded to Great Britain in return for compensation and rights in the Far East, 92 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Congo, he met with marked hostility on the part of the suspicious natives of the INIakuta country, where resided the leading middlemen who traded between Stanley Pool and San Salvador. On his third attempt to get to Tungwa and beyond, in August 1880, Comber though thwarted in this intention turned to the south and on the edge of the Zombo plateau discovered the magnificent Arthington Falls. The River Mbidizi or Mbirizi (Ambriz) descends tumultuously and in several magnificent straight plunges of 39. THE MBIDIZI OR .MBIRIZI RIVER BELOW THE ARTHINGTON FALLS 150-300 feet, a thousand feet in all, to the coastal plain. These falls are only thirty miles from San Salvador, and should be a magnificent reservoir of power for future Congo industries. Not easily daunted, Comber and Hartland started again for Makuta and Stanley Pool in the late autumn of 1880. In one of Bwaka-matu's towns, six miles beyond Tungwa, he and Hartland (their carriers all but one Cameroons attendant had long since abandoned them) were attacked with stones and sticks, and at last had to run for their lives. Shots were fired at them, and Comber was struck by a bullet in the middle of the back. He fell ; after a minute's hesitation the people rushed up to despatch him. But the bullet fortunately had not 40. rUE SHORE OF LEOPOLDVILLIC, STANI,F,V POOL, IN 1883 Sketch by the author. SAN SALVADOR AND STANLEY POOL 95 penetrated to the lungs. Therefore Comber after the first shock picked himself up, and he and Hartland ran for their lives literally for miles, only dropping into a walk as they passed through villages which had not yet heard the news. They were repeatedly fired at and attacked with stones and knives, but managed to out-distance their pursuers and regain the town of Tungwa. Here, though no attention was paid to them, they dared not wait. Rivers had to be swum or forded. In one place a kindly woman gave them a drink of water and a little cassava. Their one faithful negro companion was a Cameroons boy who had been a personal attendant of Comber for some years. Although the white men were wounded, either with sticks, stones, knives, or a bullet, they covered eighty miles in three days and a half No sooner was Comber's bullet extracted than he went down with the first recorded case of black- water fever amongst Congo missionaries. Curiously enough, the chief of Makuta — Bwaka-matu — who had ordered these attacks on the white men, fell sick, and in seven months died. The chief of Tungwa, the town where the hostility had begun, also died, together with a number of important men of the district. Finally smallpox came and devastated the whole region. Naturally, these coincidences suggested to some of the superstitious natives that attacks on missionaries were the forerunners of ill-luck. But while Comber still pegged away unsuccessfully at the southern route (he attempted this journey no less than thirteen times), Bentley and Crudgington resolved to make their attempt at Stanley Pool along the north bank of the Congo. Stanley had opened up the road past the cataracts as far as Isangila, and De Brazza had just come down along the north bank from Stanley Pool, the first European after Stanley to see that wonderful portal beyond the cataracts through which the traveller emerges, water-borne, to steam, sail, or row over nine thousand miles of navigable rivers. Grenfell had reached Musuko and San Salvador in 1880. In 1881 Bentley' was free to take up the role of avant-courier. He and his companion Crudgington crossed over to Vivi and journeyed along the north bank of the Congo through the ' Ever since in 1879 Robert Arthington had offered the cost of a steamer for the Upper Congo and a fund for her maintenance, the missionaries at San Salvador had chafed at their detention in the region of the known. But, as Bentley subse- quently wrote : — "The time spent at San Salvador before the other road to the Fool opened was not in any way lost time ; it gave us an opportunity for that quiet study of the language which furnished so much power in our work afterwards." 96 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO country of the Basundi and Babwende to Stanley Pool. The journey there and back again to Vivi — about five hundred miles — was performed in forty-three days. With the exception of De Brazza, they were the first Europeans to visit Stanley Pool since its discovery by Stanley in 1876. Bentley and Crudgington met with a very hostile reception at Nshasa on the south shore of the Pool, but a fairly friendly one from Ngaliema at Ntamo or Kintamo, on the site of the modern capital of Leopoldville. They were badly received at Nshasa by the wild Lali people because it was thought they were forerunners of Stanley's expedition. Nshasa or Kinshasa had been visited by De Brazza^ in 1 880-1. He had placed a Senegalese sergeant (Malamine) and one or two men there, and had warned the people that Stanley, the representative of another race of white people, was coming up the Congo to take the country, and that they, the people of Nshasa, belonged to France, and were resolutely to refuse any other protectors. 1 Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was an Italian, possibly of Venetian origin, whose family originally came from the island of Brazza, off the Dalmatian coast. He was actually born in 1852 on a vessel in the harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but entered the French Navy in 1870 and became naturalized as a Frenchman. His subsequent career as a French explorer and administrator is well known, as well as that of his brother, Jean. He was a man — especially where negroes were concerned — of most winning personality, able to create in a short time quite a feeling of devotion to himself and his ideas. CHAPTER VII GRENFELL'S FIRST JOURNEY BEYOND STANLEY POOL \ S the result of the Bentley-Crudgington journey came / \ the strong desire to establish as quickly as possible a J. \. mission station on the shores of Stanley Pool which might be made the base for operations along the thousands of miles of navigable waterway in the heart of Africa to which Stanley Pool is the entrance. The news of their suc- cessful and rapid trip to Stanley Pool produced from their enthusiastic supporters in England a steel boat known as the Plymouth, which, sent out in sections, was put together on the Congo in the cataract region above Isangila, where there is a stretch of ninety miles of navigable river as far as Man- yanga, a notable help in those days in the transport of goods over the nearly three hundred miles of mountainous country that lay between Vivi or Matadi (in communication with the sea) and Stanley Pool. Comber, Grenfell, and Bentley performed a series of rapid journeys backwards and forwards between Manyanga (in the middle of the cataract region) and Musuko, and founded a station called Wathen (after Sir Charles Wathen, of Bristol) on the south bank of the Congo, opposite the modern French frontier post of Manyanga. In 1881-2 Grenfell returned to England, and stayed there to superintend the construction of the Mission steamer Peace, which the late Robert Arthington had provided in addition to the steel sailing-boat, the Plymouth, given by Plymouth sup- porters of the mission. The Peace, in which so many famous journeys were made in Congo exploration with Grenfell as the captain, and with many a great Congo explorer — von Fran9ois, Wissmann, Sims, Crampel, Vangele, and Mense — as a guest, was seventy feet long and ten feet six inches broad. She was divided into seven watertight compartments of Bessemer steel coated with zinc ; was flat-bottomed, or at any rate with a keel only three inches deeper than the sides, and drew no more than I.— H 97 98 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO eighteen inches with six tons of cargo on board. Her ordinary speed was nine miles an hour, which could under pressure be increased to twelve. All the parts of this steamer had to be constructed (a necessity new in those days) in parcels, of which the heaviest must not exceed 65 pounds, so that it could be carried on a man's head. Three special loads, however, were of greater weights, ranging from 112 pounds to 250 pounds. These, where it was absolutely necessary, had to be slung to long poles, the ends of which were carried on the shoulders of porters. Of course the whole of the steamer loads could be conveyed by ships from England to Underbill (the new mission station founded in 1882 at the end of Lower Congo navigability, near the present town of Matadi), and after they had been transported mainly by porters and perhaps here and there by vehicles over Stanley's rough road round the cataracts to Isangila they could avail themselves of boats and steamers already plying on the ninety miles of navigable water between Isangila and Manyanga. Thence onwards was a terrible region alongf the south bank of the Congo, a continual up-and-down from high hills into deep valleys and across innumerable rushing streams for some- thing like 160 miles till the broadening waters of the Congo were reached at the entrance into Stanley Pool. Thomas Comber had founded the station of the Baptist Mission known as Arthington on the western outskirts of Leopoldville, over- looking the first great rapids of Ntamo. The Congo is here about a mile in breadth, and the broad waters of Stanley Pool about three miles distant.^ George Grenfell and his wife reached Arthington in July 1883, some weeks after the present writer had left Leopoldville to return to Europe. Leaving Mrs. Grenfell to reside at Arthington, which was to be his headquarters for several years, Grenfell then returned to the lower river to expedite the trans- port of the Peace in her many sections and parcels from the limit of ocean steamer navigation, 250 miles more or less to Arthington on Stanley Pool. So energetic was he, and so helped by the native chiefs and their men — a new phase altogether, so far, in the history of Congo development — that instead of taking two years to transport his steamer over this distance to Stanley Pool [it had taken Stanley that time to bring up the En Avant from Vivi to Leopoldville, but then 1 Stanley Pool is approximately eighteen miles long and fourteen miles broad. It was first correctly surveyed and mapped by Comber and Bentley in 1883. loo GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Stanley had had to make roads and fight the white man's battle with stubborn savages], Grenfell accomplished his task in a little over four months. The result was the Mission enter- prise was caught napping, and a considerable interval of time elapsed before the engineers ordered from England for the construction of the Peace could arrive at Stanley Pool. After making every preparation for the accommodation of these engineers and for the construction of the Peace, Grenfell decided to start on a voyage of exploration in the Peace s boat, a whale-boat which had been sent out at the same time as the Peace, and which was afterwards to be towed by her. (It was in this boat that Bentley and Comber explored the Pool in the summer of 1883.) Before describing this first remarkable journey of explora- tion undertaken by Grenfell alone, it might be as well to finish the history of the little steamer in which his greatest journeys were to be made. The engineers sent out from England to put the Peace together got wet through in rainstorms as they were travelling up the cataract region of the Congo, and died after a few days' illness. When Grenfell returned from his boat journey up to the Equator he determined to construct the Peace himself. To assist him he had nine negro artisans from Sierra Leone, Accra, Cameroons, and Fernando P6.^ On the 13th of June 1884 the Peace was successfully launched, and performed a trial trip at the rate of ten knots an hour. Gren- fell's assiduous watching of her construction at Chiswick, on the Thames, together with his experience as a young man (before entering the Baptist Mission) in purchasing and in inspecting machinery for a firm at Birmingham stood him in good stead. At the same time he was not a professional mechanician, and the successful construction of the Peace under such circumstances and with only the unskilled aid of the negro carpenters shows that he was a man of unusual intelli- gence and energy. His first exploring journey on the Upper Congo commenced on January 28 1884 in a small whale-boat which belonged to the equipment of the Peace and which was manned by five Kru boatmen.'-^ Two Congo servants were taken as well, to cook ' Oskar Baumann in his book on Fernando P6 remarks that Grenfell was the only European who inspired enough confidence in the suspicious natives of that island to induce one of their race to accompany him to the Upper Congo. ^ Between 1878 and 1885 the Baptist missionaries had to rely much on Kru labour from Liberia for porterage and boating work. The " Kruboys " are the real Liberians, the seafaring natives of the " Grain Coast" who have never been slaves and who despite some faults have been faithful allies of the white man in the development of West Africa. I02 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO for the Kru boys and the white men. Five hundred brass rods, the then well-recognized staple of barter, and a box of cloth, knives, looking-glasses, and beads were taken for the purchase of food or the giving of presents on the way. Provisions laid in by the party consisted of chikwanga,' a bag of rice for the men, Epps's cocoa,^ tea, sugar, and a small supply of medicine. The first part of the journey from the shore below the station of Arthington to the open waters of the Pool was a long and tedious pull for the rowers, out of all proportion to the actual distance. The entrance into the Pool was round a sharp bluff, christened in the beginning of 1883 Kallina Point.^ On the opposite shores to the north, two miles away, was the then recently founded French station of Brazzaville, at that time a collection of tumble-down huts half buried in grrass and bananas. The bank beyond Brazzaville was steep for a few miles, like that of the south shore as far as Nshasa Point. Then it rapidly sank to a marshy level as the shores retreated on either side from the eye, while the Pool broadened out almost into a vast circle, the extent being indicated here and there not by any water horizon (for the water surface was broken by a great central island and many islets), but by the tops of distant hills. Far away to the north-east gleamed the semicircle of white, sandy cliffs named by Stanley after those of Dover. ^ Chikwanga during the early 'eighties was the principal article of food to be obtained on the Congo. It was like sour, glutinous dough, and was made from the pounded roots of the manioc or cassava. It is usually now known as Kivanga without the Swahili prefix. ^ The Baptist Mission on Stanley Pool in these days of the early 'eighties was hospitable to many an exhausted traveller who came their way, independent of nationality, colour, or religion. They were not over-well supplied with European food, but managed to get up a large stock of Epps's cocoa and Huntley and Palmer's biscuits. This cocoa boiled with goats' milk was indeed, as the old advertisements ran, "grateful, comforting." Many a visitor to the station of Arthington or a sick man at the adjoining Belgian camp at Leopoldville (including the present writer) has been nursed back to health and soundness by the cocoa and biscuits offered at a critical moment by Comber, Grenfell, or Bentley. Lieutenant Kallina was an Austro-Hungarian subject engaged for the African International Association. He was filled with a great ambition to be a Congo ex- plorer, and if possible to get ahead of Stanley in the expected revelations of the interior basin of the river. Stanley had already ordered the founding of stations for his Committee in 1882 as far up the Congo as Mswata, near the Kwa mouth, and at Bolobo ; but he had left behind him orders that a further advance was to be delayed until he should return from Europe and the construction of his new steamer, the A. I. A., should be finished ; for he feared the rash handling of the wild natives by his subordinates. But Lieutenant Kallina cared little for obeying orders. He obtained a native canoe, and started away to enter Stanley Pool and pass to the unknown upper river. The current of the Congo after it leaves the Pool and before it plunges over the first rapids is very strong, and as Lieutenant Kallina rounded the bluff at the exit from the Pool his canoe capsized. His memory is retained in the geographical name of Kallina Point, and for some months this point was almost the w plus ultra of all who were not able to make use of a large boat or steamer. FIRST JOURNEY BEYOND STANLEY POOL 103 As one rows or steams across Stanley Pool the course follows almost perforce the southern shore of the central island of Bamu, as the northern passage on the other side of that island is strewn with many sandbanks and shallows. The pre- sent writer was taken by the northern route when he crossed the Pool in the early part of 3, as the journey was made in canoes, and the canoe- men preferred the smoother water, where one was safer from the attacks of hippopotami. But as Grenfell remarks in his notes on his first journey, the traveller is not conscious of the great expanse of the Pool as he makes this journey along the coast of Bamu Island : he seems mere- ly to be tra- versing a some- 42. J HE WOODED BANKS OF THE CONGO I'.KTWEEN STANLEY POOL AND THE KWA JUNCTION, RLSING TO ABOUT 800 FEET ABOVE THE STREAM LEVEL what broader expanse of the Congo. As you approach the further, the northern or eastern end of Stanley Pool the scenery becomes very beautiful. On the west is a range of bold and picturesque heights, the flanks of which are — or were— covered with dense, dark green forest. In the middle distance, a spit— really a series of flat islands — extends from the hilly eastern shore, and these promontories of low land are dotted with groves of fine and spreading trees which stand out in vivid summer ofreen against the backoround of blue hills. Here and there is a graceful fan palm. As one I04 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO emerges from the Pool to ascend the narrowing Congo, the hills on the east rise to a height of nearly a thousand feet sheer up from the banks of the river, and are clothed with splendid hanging forests. The scenery of wood and water is diversified all round the shores of the Pool by the multitudes of water-birds, especially the flocks of white egrets. When one has entered the main stream of the Conoo both above and below the Pool, water- birds are scarce so long as the current is swift and the banks are steep. Grenfell describes thus the scenery of the gorge of the upper river north of Stanley Pool : — " Steep, tree-clad hills of a thousand feet or so on either bank of the vast, rushing Congo reflected their dark green hues in its waters, making in the ev^ening light so sombre a picture that one could well excuse [if tlie mystery had not been already solved] a superstitious dread of attempting to penetrate the unknown through such an un- propitious-looking gate. ... So it was when I first saw it, the effect being partly due to the contrast between the brilliantly white Dover Cliffs [the glistening sandbanks which we have just left] and the sober hues of the tree-clad hills which rise almost precipitously from the water's edge." Along this relatively narrow gorge of the Congo, between Stanley Pool and the mouth of the Kwa, Grenfell was careful to note the position of the reefs of hard sandstone so that he might have some knowledge of the river when he should navigate his steamer later on ; for he guessed rightly that this portion of the Congo course is dangerous in parts to navigation fronl the submerged reefs and isolated hummocks of rock. Above the junction of the main Congo with the Kwa the hills on either side of the great river decrease in height and stretch away in divergent lines to the east and west, while the river broadens out to three miles wide. Near the shore this part of the Congo bristles with rocks, but is almost without islands. In fact, had Grenfell been travel- ling in a wooden boat (especially as he was without a practised pilot) he could scarcely have survived the bumps he received from unsuspected reefs and jagged rocks or concealed snags, or from the attacks of hippopotami. The present writer made this ascent of the river as far as Bolobo a year before Grenfell's attempt, in one of Stanley's steel boats, but some months after- wards had to descend the river in a native canoe. Two other canoes went with him, one containing men in the service of Stanley's expedition, and the other his own servants and FIRST JOURNEY BEYOND STANLEY POOL 105 baggage. The foremost of the three canoes was upset by a hippopotamus in the middle of the Congo, and none of its occupants were seen again, having probably been dragged below by crocodiles. The traveller was thus presented with a most disagreeable alternative in canoe-travelling. If he paddled close inshore he was liable to be attacked and swamped by a hippopotamus. If on the other hand the canoe was directed out into the centre of the course of this enormous river it might very well be capsized by the swirling, racing, eddying 43. THE ROCKY POINTS OR REEFS WHICH STRETCH OUT INTO THE CONGO OR KASAI AND OFTEN CAUSE STEAMERS TO COME TO GRIEF current, and of course the Congo in mid-stream was very deep and swarming with crocodiles. Grenfell called in at Bolobo, which had not long before been the easternmost of Stanley's stations. This was one of a series of Bayanzi or Babangi trading towns along the east bank, the people of which were very turbulent, and at that time not at all well disposed towards the settlement of Europeans. They had in fact stopped the present writer from proceeding further on his journey in the previous year. But since then Stanley had passed up-river, making light of their opposition, and had founded a suc- cession of stations on the main stream all the way to the Stanley Falls, especially at Lukolela, at " Equatorville " (the point where the Equator cut the Congo, since named Coquilhatville), and at Bangala, nearly two degrees north of the Equator. io6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The riv^er banks of the Concro, north of the Kwa conflu- ence, were at that time chiefly settled by the enterprising Babangi people, also known as Bayanzi — the name applied to them by the Ba- Kongo, while they are known to the Bateke as " Babaiio." ^ At Lukolela, a station which Stanley had founded in the autumn of 1883, Grenfell met a young Yorkshireman named E. J. Glave, who was afterwards to become famous for a remark- able trans- African journey which he performed in 1892-3 as a correspondent of The Century Magazine and other American journals." Above Bolobo, except opposite Lukolela and Ngombe, the Congo is exceedingly broad — perhaps seven to twenty miles in places. This is the region Grenfell describes as : " a great central swamp which extends east and west, with occasional short breaks, for about seven hundred miles. . . . The opposite bank of the river cannot be seen, it is often below the horizon, beyond a wilder- ness of shallow water and low, sandy islands, some of which are covered with a dense vegetation. Even the tall trees are crowned' and. draped with beautiful creepers. There is much Usiiea lichen. A narrow channel, seldom more than two hundred yards wide, separates the bank from the islands. Through this one picks one's way with difficulty, often through herds of hippos, which bellow and grunt in the most threatening manner. . . . The islands at which one stops to pass the night are re- garded by the hippopotami as their private property. On this first journey the hippos would boldly assail our camp. The boys attempted to drive them off by hurling firewood at them, but as this did not deter them I was obliged to shoot, with the result that the natives passing by the next morning found to their surprise some tons of fresh meat lying on the sandbank." Whilst on this boat journey Grenfell stopped at the newly founded "Equator Station" ("situated on another ridge beside the river, about thirty feet high, a ridge extending for some ' The Bateke are the dominant race on the river banks at Stanley Pool and thence northwards to the Kwa confluence, and further north still on the western shore. They are connected linguistically with the tribes of the upper Ogowe and of the lower Kasai, Kwango, Kwilu, and Lukenye. They have many peculiar customs of their own, and are a well-marked group. The Bayanzi or Babangi speak a Bantu language which is less corrupt than that of the Bateke, a little more like the eastern Bantu tongues. They are the people of the lower Mubangi, and the great commercial race of the broad, lake-like region of the western Upper Congo, ranging between the Mangala country on the east, about as far as 20° Long. E., and the Kwa mouth and Stanley Pool on the west, where in former days they and the Bateke used to meet the Congo settlers from San Salvador and the coast region and exchange the ivory and slaves of the Upper Congo for the trade goods of the Europeans brought up by the Congo middlemen. - He died of malarial fever at Underbill, at the house of the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt, Secretary to the Baptist Mission, in 1895. His papers were published in 1896. Note It was probably the northern or Ibenga Channel which was entered by Grenfell in his whaleboat on Feb. 20, '84. To /ace f. io6 FIRST JOURNEY BEYOND STANLEY POOL 107 ten miles . . . houses built of sun-dried bricks. . . . Stanley's people under two Belgian officers had only been here some eight months, but already there were European vegetables growing in the garden "). From this station he struck across to the west bank at Bulungu, and coasted along it till (about February 20th 1884) by accident or design he struck the mouth — or the northernmost mouth — of the Mubangi, here more properly styled the Liboko River, l^h'is river, like the Sanga close by (further to the south), enters the main Congo in a kind of delta, a confused labyrinth of islands and sandbanks. In the delta of this river he found wild coffee growing, and brought down seeds which were subsequently planted at Leopoldville. On the Lower Mubangi the natives were acquainted with the coffee shrub (for the sweet pulp surrounding its berries) and called it " Musa saku." After noting the Mubangi confluence Grenfell apparently visited the extensive delta of the Sanga River, where he also found wild coffee g-rowinof. His few notes on the Sanga are not dated, and it is not certain that they apply entirely to this first boat journey when he was hazy as to the separate identity of the Sanga^ and Mubangi. On the 4th of March 1884 Grenfell returned to Arthington (Stanley Pool), having only occupied five weeks on this adventurous boat journey, which had at any rate resulted in drawing attention to the existence of the greatest tributary the Congo possesses — so far as length of course is concerned. His elation at his discovery, however, was damped by the gloomy news awaiting his return. As already stated, the two engineers who had come out to build the Peace, together with a mission- ary colleague. Hartley, were all dead. ^ The Sanga River politically is one of the most important affluents of the Congo. It is navigable from its junction with the main Congo as far north as the fourth degree of N. latitude, or, in other words, the hinterland of the Cameroons and the south-east of Adamawa. The river was reported in 1885 by the brothers Jean and Savorgnan de Brazza, and was actually discovered and mapped b)' Cholet and Fourneau in 1890-91 : by Mizon, S. de Brazza, Clozel, and others, between 1892 and 1895. It W'ls also reached by various German explorers from the Cameroons. When the German Government concluded its frontier arrangement with France in 1894 it arranged to bring the frontier of the Cameroons colony to the Ngoko affluent of the Sanga (which rises within three hundred miles of the Cameroons coast) and also to the main stream of the Sanga. Thus Germany has a corner of the Congo basin, and can claim the right to navigate the Congo and its affluents. CHAPTER VIII THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI ON the / th of July 1884 the Peace had been put together, and Grenfell started with Comber on a five weeks' prospecting tour in the new steamer. In two days from Arthington they reached the vicinity of Mswata, and in another day had anchored opposite the new international station at the mouth of the Kwa. This river seemed in those clays the most significant of the Congo's tributaries, though its full importance was not realized even then. Politically, it has lost place in favour of the Mubangi, which is far more likely to prove in the future as well as in the present an important line of political and ethnographical definition. AlthouQrh the Kwa where it enters the main Cono-o is of dis- ... . . ^ appointing width, it is of astonishing depth and volume — scarcely less in these respects than the Congo itself Grenfell and Comber therefore resolved to see if they could not arrive at more important results than Stanley had done a few months previously when he had explored the Kwa as far as the conflu- ence of the Kwango-Kasai and the Mfini, but had unaccountably decided that the Mfini was the main stream and had followed this up till he entered Lake Leopold 11.^ Grenfell writes on the 24th of August 1884 : — " The Kwa for the first thirty miles has a mean course of N.E. between steep grass and scrub-covered hills of from 200 to 500 feet ^ Stanley on his original journey in 1877 discovered the confluence of the Kwa with the Congo, and jumped to the conclusion — quite rightly — that it was the outlet of the Kwango, but it never occurred to him to suppose that this narrow-mouthed tribu- tary could likewise be the outlet of the mighty River Kasai, a river which had been discovered by Portuguese explorers at the end of the eighteenth century, but redis- covered and announced by Livingstone, and crossed in its upper waters by Cameron and Pogge prior to 1876. Stanley imagined that the Kasai found its outlet into the Congo through the much less important Busira-Juapa stream at Equator Station. He named this the Buruki or Muhindu, and attributed to it a greater breadth than it possessed. The Kwa he styled the Ibari-Nkutu, but afterwards adopted the name Bochini, which was introduced by Comber. The best term for the joint outlet of the Kwango-Kwilu-Mfini-Lukenye-Kasai-Lulua-Sankuru would seem to be the simple native name of Kwa. 108 THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 109 liigh, with narrow fringes of timber at the water's edge and in the valleys. Along this reach of the river, which has a width varying from a quarter to three-quarters of a mile, navigation involves great care, by reason of the many rocky reefs which stretch out into nearly mid-stream. . . . Where the course changes near the friendly town of Bo, the river takes upon itself the character of the higher reaches of the Congo, widening out among sandbanks and islands into lake-like expansions of from two to five miles wide and five to fifteen miles long. . . . On its banks are wild vines with edible fruit, African nutmegs, cotton, orange trees, cucumbers, and jatropha." Some fifty miles from Kwamouth they reached the country of the Babuma, the natives and dialect of which were first described by the writer of this book, who saw specimens of the Babuma on the Congo near the mouth of the Kwa in 1883. They were a friendly people — in those days — towards white men, and were most of them grouped under the rule of a powerful chieftainess, Nga-Nkabi. Havino- investio-ated the confluence of the Kwangro with the main Kasai (though they did not guess at the identity of the latter river then), they thus carried Congo exploration a little in advance of Stanley, who hitherto had only revealed the exist- ence of the Mfini and of Lake Leopold II. They then returned to the main Congo and resumed their ascent of that river. Past the well-known native settlement of Chumbiri or Tsumbidi they noticed a remarkably stony hill, one of a series stretching north- wards on either side of the main Congo, from two hundred to seven hundred feet high, mostly on the northern or western bank — hills differing from the smoothly rounded, sandy hum- mocks further to the west.^ Above Chumbiri's they came in sight of " Lone Island," which though apparently standing all by itself was found by them to be "only the first of the countless islands which are an ever-present feature of the river from this point to Stanley Falls." Hereabout, too, they exchanged the deep water and the dangerous reefs and rocks for shallows and sandbanks so numerous and channels so intricate that they often lost sight of the mainland and had to rely on their compass for the course. ^ These stony hills would seem to be the vestiges of the ancient plateau not completely worn away or silted over by the waters of the vast Congo basin ; which at one time filled up the central depression of the southern half of Africa with a fresh- water lake vaster probably than any other the world has known, a lake at least six times the size of the present Victoria Nyanza, of which the only remains are the broad course of the Upper Congo, lakes Ntomba and Leopold, and a lake or swamp at the head of the scarcely explored Lukenye River. no GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO "The current certainly tells us^ whether we are going up or down, but when the channel is two miles wide, to go up or down is not always sufificient. It is important to steer a straight course and hit the right bank, and not to wander about in a maze at haphazard, and find one- self in the wrong channel. After thirty miles or so among these islands and sandbanks, the hills once more approach the river, and on the slope of these hills on the eastern bank, ranging for about a couple of miles, we find the Bolobo towns, of which Ibaka is the supreme chief . . . " In Bolobo, as in Chumbiri, the inhabitants are Bayanzi, or as they call them- selves, the Boban- gi people. In ad- jacent Moye we find Banunu peo- ple, the Banunu being probably the indigenous race. Inland are said to be the Batende. Bolobo has about two miles of villages composing its town. Moye is rather bigger than Bolobo, and its villages, each un- der its separate chieftain, extend further back from the river, and higher up the sides of the loo- feet hill which backs them. Between Bolobo and l\Io\-e there is frequently enmity, and one can generally reckon too on internal dissensions in each district, one chief of Bolobo frequently not being on speaking terms with his fellow-chief Although Ibaka is the special, and perhaps biggest chief of Bolobo (being the white man's chief or not by any means the only one. There are in all eighty chief characteristics of Bolobo people appear to be immorality, and cruelty, out of each of which 1 The passages that follow are from a report jointly written by Grenfell and Comber in the archives of the Baptist Missionary Society. 44- THE "LONE ISLAND' WHERE THE CONGO KROADEX.- NEAR CHUMBIRI : SKETCHED BY THE AUTHOR friend), he is chiefs ! The drunkenness, vices spring actions THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI iii almost too fearful to describe. In hearing of these, one living out here almost gets to feel like calling the people terrible brutes and wretches, rather than poor miserable heathen. The light of their consciences must condemn them in most of their sins. " On the afternoon of our arrival, accompanied by Lieut. Liebrechts,^ of the Association Internationale, we walked through all the towns of Bolobo and Moye. In Bolobo it was a great day, a gala day indeed. The wife of one of the chiefs had died somewhere away, and, of course, there must be four or five days and nights of orgies — any amount of dirty sugar-cane-beer swilling, unbridled licence in every species of sensuality, and a grand finale of four human sacrifices, each victim being a poor wretch of a slave bought for the purpose ! Drums beat- ing briskly, circles of 'fine' women, wearing the heavy brass collar (25 to 30 lb.), dancing and clapping rhythmically, and plenty of people in all the streets. The victims were tied up somewhere ; of course, they would not tell us where ; they were said to be apathetically and stolidly awaiting their fate — bowstring or knife — both being Bobangi ways of killing. Remonstrances and pleadings on behalf of these poor victims were all in vain. " Naturally, in walking through these towns, we tried to make friends with the people as much as possible. We know scarcely any of their language, and can do very little with them on these first short prospecting visits. . . . " From Bolobo we steamed on past some very pretty hill scenery, passing Moye Nkunju and Sakamimbe, charmingly situated on spurs of rocky, tree-clad hills, and prettily embowered in trees. These people seem to have picked all the best sites. For the whole of the distance, 100 miles, we saw absolutely nothing of the opposite bank of the great river we were ascending ; but, keeping somewhere near the eastern shore, and a general north-east direction, we passed among the islands in channels of from 150 to 1,500 yards wide, water generally shallow. Towns very few. As we approached Lukolela on the third day, we found the current much stronger ; and at last, the first time for 120 miles, we saw the opposite shore. Just above Lukolela the river narrows from its hitherto unknown width, to a mile and a half. " Lukolela was fixed upon as the site for our first new mission station. The whole of Lukolela and its vicinity is the densest forest. From the water's edge the ground gently slopes to a height of about sixty feet. Giants of trees abound — cotton trees, African teak, etc. — with a girth that takes the edge off your axe almost at sight of it. . . . " The villages of Lukolela are smaller and somewhat more scattered than those of Bolobo and other Bobangi towns, although Lukolela people too belong to the same enterprising tribe. . . . "Leaving Lukolela on July 23 (1884), we slept just below Ngombe, which we reached early the following morning. Here the river narrows again, having expanded, as usual, below the two places. Opposite Ngombe, a little above, is the Mubangi River, evidently a considerable body of water, of a light cafc-au-lait colour ; contrasting strongly, and for many miles refusing to mix with the dark brown water of the main ' Now Secretary of the Interior in the Congo State Government. (H. H. J.) 112 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO river. The two bodies of water flow side by side, always with a great deal of commotion and splashing waves at their edges of contact, as if jostling each other on their way down.^ The same is very noticeable, too, at the Lulongo River much higher up, the water of which, flowing alongside that of the big river, is inky black. " About twelve miles further on we came to a splendid set of towns, viz. Butunu, Boshende, and Ilebo. In these settlements, especially the last two, which are separated from each other by about a mile of bush, we have probably the densest population yet seen by us on the Congo, not excluding Bangala towns. The people literally swarmed, the crowd coming to one point of beach numbering about five hundred people. Here, as at Ngombe, and at most towns as far as Liboko, there are 45. FIRST BAPTIST MISSION-HOUSE AT LUKOLELA isolated stretches of rocky banks where the overlying soil seems par- ticularly fertile, and where the people have built. Sometimes this rocky bank, washed by the current, assumes the form of a squared and arti- ficially constructed quay for distances of twenty to fifty yards. The towns, especially the Ilebo ones, go back extensively, away from the river, an unusual thing, as if the suitable building land along the river front was not sufficient for the people. . . . " At Ilebo we slept, after going on shore to make friends with the people. . . . Walking about the towns, we found each chief sitting on his stool outside his house, ready to giv-e us a welcoming shake of the hands. . . . Mayongo, chief of Boshende, ^ Grenfell noted on this journey that the colour of the Mubangi was Hght brick- red or pinkish ochre, and that its islands and shores were heavily timbered. Vide note on p. 116. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 113 and Ipaka of Ilebo, as well as almost every friendly-disposed man of importance, from Chumbiri up to Liboko, were very desirous to seal friendship by the ceremony of blood - brotherhood, which, among the Ilebo, Bo- bangi, and Bangala people, is very com- mon ; but the rite is so meaningless and empty, and appears to have no binding force, that up to the present we have always re- fused to drink blood with anyone ; and our arms, unlike those of a few upper-river travel- lers, and notably the arms of all Ilebo and Bangala chiefs, are not covered with a lot of marks, the scars of blood-brotherhood. . . . " The Congo equa- torial towns are divided up into districts as fol- lows : Bujungi, Mbon- go, Inganda, and Bvvangata.^ ... At M bongo the people seemed very rudely bold and troublesome . . . almost as though they wanted to fight us because we would not stop and go ashore at their rocky beaches. Inganda was especially interesting to us, be- cause our Livingstone Inland Mission breth- ren are going to build there. These people about the great Ruki River are the niost ^5 ^.^pulula, a pilot on the mission steamer "peace" primitive we have (A Mongata man recruited after Grenfell's first voyage.) hitherto met. They are the only people we saw who use the bow and arrow. Here too we ' Many Bangata or Wangata men subsequentl)' entered the bervice of the Mission. I. — I 114 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO first saw an African shield, and found most men walking about with bows and arrows and shields, or spears and shield, or else a murderous knife. " That they are cruel, curiously and ingeniously cruel, we know from the description given by Lieut. Vangele, the chief of Equatorville Station, of the methods of execution obtaining amongst them. Certain victims die by the knife, and others have to afford to the bloodthirsty spectators the pleasures of the chase. These last are given a certain start across country, and then are pursued in full cry by all the people armed with spears and bows and arrows. An obstinate victim who will not run well causes disappointment, but others are said to make a ' fine run ' before they fall, pierced with arrows and spears. . . . " The Ruki River we found to be just the magnificent affluent Stanley has described it, quite i,ooo yards wide, and with several islands at its embouchure. Up above the Ruki confluence we saw Bangala towns, stretching right away to i° 50' N. (our farthest point) to Liboko, where Stanley had his great battle in 1877. We went, however, about forty-five miles above Equatorville before we arrived at Lulanga, the first Bangala town on the eastern bank. After leaving the Ruki River, until we arrived at Lulanga, we really saw no point on the eastern shore where a town could be built : all was so low and muddy. " At Lulanga we had our first real introduction to Bangala people, and we found them out and out the most boisterous, wild, noisy, troublesome, worrying lot of people either of us has ever met. We were introduced by our friend Mangaba, of Lukolela, who all the journey had made himself very interesting to us. Like all the Bobangi people, Mangaba was very superstitious, and carried his fetishes with him on board. His toilet was never complete without the application of his face powder and rouge — not used, however, to improve the complexion, but to make mysterious red and white (pipeclay) marks about his body, in which his boy assisted him. A white line up his back, from hip to left shoulder, to the left of the median line, was carried thence along the outer part of the arm down to the hand. Red and white lines are drawn on the left foot, ditto across the forehead, but all drawn with the most religious care. " To converse with these people was very difficult, but we sometimes tried it when in the evening we had prayer and gathered round us our boys to sing our Congo hymn. ' God hears us when we speak to Him,' we said to Mangaba. ' Indeed ! ' said he, not much surprised. ' Yes, He is our Father, and He is very good, and loves us all very much,' said we. But to this Mangaba objected. ' God was not very good. Why was He always killing people (by death) ? ' And then we had to try and explain the resurrection and the home in heaven ; but it was difficult to remove his sceptical objections. "We found just above Lulanga a considerable river. It is called the Lulongo River, and is about 600 yards wide, the water being inky black. . . . " Mangaba informed us that Bangala was divided into five districts : Lulanga and Bolombo on the left, and Mungundu, Bukolela, and Liboko on the right bank. " About twelve miles above the Lulongo River we crossed over to the other side of the river, thus obtaining an idea of its width in this THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 115 place, although we crossed very obliquely. We passed three Bukolela towns — Lobengo, Monsombe, and Bobimba, each one built on one of the few raised plots here and there obtaining on the banks. These banks were of clay, and from four to six feet above the water. Along the beach were broad double ladders, a sort of landing-steps reaching down into the river. The people here seemed quieter and milder, and quite ready to welcome us. " At last, on August i, we reached Liboko, and after steaming along seven miles of towns, more or less close to each other, we came to that of the great chief Mata-mayiki (i.e. plenty of guns), where the Inter- national Association has built a fine house. " At Liboko we were half-way to Stanley Falls. On setting out from Arthington we had given ourselves five weeks, and, had this time been sufficient, there was nothing to prevent us going the whole distance of 1,000 miles. There was nothing to obstruct; the road was open an4 most inviting ; the Peace working well ; the only thing which made any lengthening of our journey impossible was the fact that we had left Mrs. Grenfell alone at Arthington, and one of us was overdue to go down to the coast and home to England. Our gang of Loangos too were due to go home. So we had, albeit most reluctantly, to start back." The limit of Grenfell's first exploration of the Congo by steamer was at Liboko, which would be equivalent at the present day to the Belgian station at Bangala. They had entered the territory of the important Bangala tribe, ^ which differs slightly from the Babangi of the lower Mubangi and of the banks of the western Congo as far as Bolobo. Thence they returned to Stanley Pool, which they reached at the beginning of September. On the 13th of October of the same year — 1884 — Grenfell started on his second journey of exploration in the Peace? In commencing his account of this, he notes a remarkable incident in which a native fireman (probably from the Luango coast) was rescued from a crocodile. The fireman together with other men was enjoying a swim in the Congo after a day's hard work. Just as he was about to enter the small boat from which they had dived he called out, " Help me : a crocodile has got my hand!" His other arm was firmly seized by his com- panions, who were very nearly dragged out of the boat by the crocodile, while the unfortunate fireman was completely im- mersed. A tug-of-war which lasted fully five minutes ensued 1 The Bangala people were popular from the first with all Europeans in spite of occasional outbreaks of hostility. They are a splendid-looking race, sometimes with really handsome faces, and almost always with bodies that are ideals of manly beauty, the women also being attractive and well shaped. In the 'eighties of the last century their labour was cheaper than that of any other race on the Congo, the wages asked being not more than £i a year ! ^ His third journey up the Congo beyond Stanley Pool, the first having been performed in a whale-boat. ii6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO before the crocodile gave up in disgust. The fireman was rescued from a horrible death with no worse injuries than a lacerated hand and slight wounds on the face and leo- from which he soon recovered.^ On this second voyage of the Peace Grenfell was accom- panied by his wife and eldest child and by Dr. Sims of the American Baptist Missionary Union ; also by six of the mission-school boys. The expedition examined the lower course of the Lefini or Lifini. [Grenfell describes the colour of the Lefini water as slaty-blue.] They then continued the ascent of the Congo past Bolobo to the Nkenye River, which they explored for five days. The natives, however, were hostile, and Dr. Sims narrowly escaped being killed by them, so that after ascending the Nkenye for seventy miles (again noting the number and boldness of the crocodiles) they returned to the main Cong-o. Apparently on this tour of exploration the Alima or " Mai ma Mbosi " was visited. This river has played some part in Congo history since the discovery of its upper waters by L. S. de Brazza in 1878 turned his attention to his Congo "pounce" in 1880. In its upper waters it is called Leketi, in its lower course Mbosi ; and here, according to Grenfell, its current flows at the rate of 250 feet a minute. In the Bokangani country, through which the Mai ma Mbosi or lower Alima flows, there is a mixture of the Babangi and Bateke people and a corres- ponding mixture of dialects. This land is remarkable (writes Grenfell) for its enormous quantities of Raphia palms, called locally Mbadi or Lofandi. Their fir-cone-like fruits have an oil that is present in the outer husk, an oil in which the Bokan- gani people trade. The inner nut is burnt for salt. On his two previous journeys it is clear that Grenfell had not attached overmuch importance to his discovery of the Mubangi mouth, ^ for in October 1884 he writes that he had ' In those days, and at the time when the present writer was on the Congo, the crocodiles were exceedingly bold in their attacks on Europeans and natives, not having sufficiently realized the effect of firearms. The present writer has endured an occasional half-hour of disagreeable suspense whilst his frail canoe, paddled by two anxious men, has been followed by a huge crocodile, which seemed at intervals to be preparing to jump out of the water and on to the canoe. But for the rate at which the canoe travelled it would probably have effected its purpose. ^ Of late the priority of discovery of the Mubangi by Grenfell has been disputed by certain Belgian writers in favour of Capt. Haussens, who with one or more Belgian companions certainly entered the Mubangi delta on April 20th 1884. But these writers forget that Grenfell had preceded Haussens (alone, in his own mission boat : vide p. 107) on or about F"ebruary 20th in that year, tirenfell thought he had dis- covered a great branch of the main Congo, though by July 1884 he realized it was an independent river. He was unquestionably the first to prove the independent status of the Mubangi by his journey up it in October 1884. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 117 originally thought the phrase " Mai ma Bobangi " was just the name given to a separate branch of the main Congo. "It was not until we had journeyed nearly 130 miles up the Mubangi that we made sure of its independence." Before they had gone very far on this remarkable journey of discovery they found themselves amongst natives who were really startled at the sight of a white man, and who greeted the expedition with cries of Bidimo ! bidimo ("Spirits"). On board the Peace was a Mubangi native from the banks of the Congo, who attempted to appease the fears of his countrymen. But the distrust of the natives was invincible, and Grenfell's expedition was forced by failure of food supplies to return, after having travelled up the river about 130 miles, without, however, being able to do much surveying. The warriors on the banks, he noticed, when preparing to fight donned sleeveless jackets of elephant or buffalo hide. They used long, narrow shields, and fought with bundles of spears. While anchoring at night on the Mubangi, the Peace was nearly swept off downstream by a huge floating island of vegetation coming- athwart her bows and causing- her to drag^ her anchors. Grenfell feared that his little steamer might in this way be forced under overhanging trees, or across some great snag : even with steam full up in the opposite direction to the current he could not prevent her being carried along by this floatingf mass of vegetation. At last the crew, standing- on the island with hatchets and hand-saws, detached the tough roots of the floating vegetation from the bow of the Peace, and thus the steamer after being dragged for two miles got free and steamed back to the main Congo, her crew eager for supplies of food. The next item of discovery on the eastward, outgoing- voyage of October-March 1884-5, ^^'^ the Ruki or Black River, which is nearly joined at its confluence with the Congo by the Ikelemba.^ This was Stanley's Buruki or Muhindu, the stream which he thought was the ultimate outlet of the Kasai. Grenfell discovered it to be formed by the juncture of two important streams, the Juapa and Busira, but his explorations in this direction were postponed to a more convenient oppor- tunity, and he confined himself on this trip to the ascent of the Ikelemba, a much smaller river, but one which taps — or tapped — a district of metal-workers who sent down large supplies of knives and spears for sale on the Congo. Returning to the main Congo, they coasted along the ' " Up the Ruki there are many pahris. A conglomerate formation. The towns are built on lofty points." ii8 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " Ngombe district" (which would seem to be the country be- tween the Ruki River on the south and the Lulano-a River on the north), and here entered a town called Danda, not far from the Ikelemba, which Grenfell describes as follows : — " It was quite different from anything we had previous!}' seen, being entirely surrounded by a ditch, twelve feet wide and six deep, and on the inner side of this ditch by a tall barricade of split logs twelve feet high. There were three entrances into the town, each approached by a single log bridge ; the narrow breaks in the barricade were provided with slabs of wood in readiness to close them should the need arise. Dr. Sims and Eyambi were the first to enter this town, and the people were so much startled by the white man's advent that one of them jumped up and let fly an arrow at the unannounced visitors, very narrowl)' missing the doctor, and going through Eyambi's cloth. The people scarcely appeared to understand why we did not declare war at once, and regarded our attempts at friendly intercourse with such evident suspicion that neither party were much at ease till each was further apart. " These people ornament themselves in a frightful way, by making raised cicatrices on their faces, covering them entirely, in some cases even the lips, with lumps as big as peas. Sometimes a man will have a row all down his nose as close as they can stick, others will be con- tent with three or four, while others again will have a big one just on the lip, suggestive of a budding rhinoceros horn. Some have rows of these ' blebs ' all round the eyes and along the cheeks, till they meet at the chin, resulting in a horrid similarity to the outline of a 'death's head.' One girl whom we saw had a lump as large as a pigeon's egg on each side of her nose, and so close to her eyes that they must have been a great trouble, for when she wished to look at anyone, she had to bow her head and look over these ' beauty marks.'" After this investigation of the Ikelemba (which he noted was a hundred yards wide at its mouth) Grenfell ascended the main Congo (along the western bank) to the Bosungu creek. This stream, as well as one or two further south and north, he takes to be only canals connecting the main Congo with the lower Mubangi at flood time ; but subsequent explorations have shown that if this water connection takes place it is with the Noiri affluents of the Mubans^i. Near the Bosungu creek Grenfell stopped at the large native town of Lobeno-o on the west bank. He describes the chief's " palace " or ngiiniba house (what elsewhere in Africa we should style the guest house, the place of assemblage in the middle of the village) as little else than a large roof, sixty or seventy feet long by twenty to twenty-five feet wide, supported on posts, and without any wall, the "king-posts" being finely wrought by a species of carving which added greatly to their THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 121 appearance, and evidences both considerable skill and patience. These ngumba houses of the Upper Congo are like the baraza of East Africa, generally the place where the head-men of the village meet to eat, or to discuss matters, or where a chief entertains his guests. Palavers are talked here, and pipes are smoked. " From the roof," writes Grenfell, " hung a very miscellaneous collection of African fishing-nets of all kinds, with meshes from the size of a finger to a span long, for catching everything from little fish in the water to large deer on land ; also rat traps built after the manner of the toy known as the Siamese link, into which if a rat once enters, the more he struggles, the tighter he is held ; there were also pipes, both long and short, stuck into the thatch or the framework, the shorter ones being smoked by the chief's wives, while that of the chief himself might have a stem of from six to eight feet long. Amongst the other furniture of this wonderful roof were spears and spear rests, shields and knives, stores of medicines, and charms, stools, dishes, a spare bed or two, fly whisks, a kind of backgammon board,^ trophies of the chase, and many other things might be seen stowed away in this capacious roof" This town of Lobengo and many of the other prosperous villages and settlements mentioned by Grenfell as existing in the 'eighties south of Monsembe have now disappeared, owing to unfriendly feeling between the natives and their white rulers. At Monsembe, however, a Baptist mission station was subsequently established. Here the Babangi people were in terror of attacks from the neiohbourino- Bano-ala. These descents of one tribe on another in this region were made as much as anything for the purpose of obtaining victims for cannibal feasts. At the Bangala towns which Grenfell reached for the first time in November 1884 (though he had been preceded by the African International Association) he found himself in actual contact with cannibals. Slaves were being killed and cut up when his steamer reached the principal Bangala settlement. At the mouth of the Mongala River, among the Babika, he met with a friendly reception, but the floods were out, and there was scarcely a square yard of dry ground in the whole town. Everything looked wretchedly swampy and unhealthy. The pathway to the town through the svi^amp was marked by hideous rows of skulls on sticks, and the chief and most of his people were decorated with 1 The " bao " of East-Central Africa, a thick piece of wood scooped out into a number of shallow holes, on which a game is played by means of beans or pebbles. This board is found nearly all over Negro Africa, being only wanting amongst the Bushmen, Hottentots, Pygmies, Masai, and Nilotic Negroes. 122 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO necklaces of human teeth. There was plenty of wild rice growing here, and the people possessed many guns. On December ist 1884 he reached Mpesa, near Bomangi on the north or right bank, the low situation of which appeared to furnish a very uncomfortable sort of site for its three or four thousand inhabitants. Three miles beyond Mpesa he got a glimpse of the south' or left bank, which he had not been able to see dur- ing the previous two hundred miles. A few miles further on they came in siorht of a lonor, strao-alinor reef o o <_> of rocks, which stretched at rioht anoles for a quarter of a mile riofht out into the Congo stream. On either side of this reef was Bopoto, a busy place, at which a ofreat deal of 48. NECKLACE OF HUMAN TEETH FROM THE NORTHERN CONGO fororino; work was gomg on. Here axes and hoes were made by the blacksmiths to supply the needs of all the surrounding district. At this place Grenfell's party changed their beads, wire, and cloth for soft-iron axes of local manufacture, which further to the east would prove the most suitable currency. One axe was valued at two brass rods. To the eastward they found that a single axe would in some cases buy a goat. Bopoto was afterwards to become a flourishing Baptist mission station. Both here and THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 123 at other places the Baptist missionaries have preserved the natives from too ruthless treatment on the part of the whites. The natives of Bopoto are an enterprising people, and in their search for work or adventure have penetrated as far eastwards as the Uganda Protectorate, where the present writer was able to employ them as porters in his caravan a few years ago, and to write down their dialect. Like most of the natives of the Upper Congo, they scar their faces hideously. In the Bumba district, at the confluence of the River Lubi or Rubi (a river first explored by Grenfell, and called by him alternatively the Loika or Itimbiri) the expedition found it had reached a country of somewhat different ethnographical charac- ter. The people no longer filed their teeth (a characteristic of most of the cannibal Bangala tribes of the Upper Congo), their hair was not fancifully dressed, but their bodies were painted in elaborate patterns of red and black. The ears were pierced and the lobe distended till it became rope-like. They called to one another with a gfood imitation of a cock-crow. Their houses instead of being built of grass were made of mud, with rounded ends and bark roofs. Here the great Congo is probably at its broadest — opposite Yambinga — unless this distinction should be awarded to the Sanga or the Mubangi confluence. At any rate, at Yambinga, near the mouth of the Rubi, the Con^o is almost the averao-e breadth of the Albert Nyanza or of the north end of Lake Nyasa, though its surface is so studded with islands that navigation is far safer, and the sheet of water is not so imposing in appearance {vide map, opp. p. 290). The Peace ascended the Itimbiri or Rubi River (which was from 150 to 300 yards wide) for a distance of nearly 100 miles, till further progress was stopped by falls. The Rubi a little dis- tance above these falls comes from far away in the east, near the Nepoko and the Aruwimi. Another branch, the Likati, rises quite close to the upper waters of the Wele-Makua, and joins the Rubi above the falls which mark its descent from the plateau region to the lake-like basin of the Congo. On either side of the lower Rubi lofty red cliffs rise perpendicularly from the river, often with fertile plots on the top. The Rubi people descend and ascend these steep approaches to the water by means of rough ladders made of notched palm-trunks, which can be hauled up and down. They are a good-looking race, the boys especially. They do not file their teeth, and wear the hair dressed in three tufts. The ornaments on neck and arms are of copper. The point at which Grenfell stopped was 2° 50' N. Lat. 124 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Up and down the Rubi the people were fairly friendly, though at first very timid ; but when Grenfell resumed his ascent of the main Congo and reached the Basoko country at Monungiri, and from thence onwards to the Aruwimi/ the people were not only most unfriendly, but he discovered to his horror that they had overwhelmed the small post of Hausa soldiers placed at the Aruwimi mouth by Stanley's expedition, and had eaten two of the Hausas, the remaining one of the three soldiers having escaped, as he was too thin to tempt their palates. The Aruwimi River being barred by the cataracts of Yambuya at no great distance from its mouth, and the people on its banks proving so unfriendly, Grenfell made no attempt to explore it. Moreover, he was soon conscious that he was approaching trouble. He had seen the Basoko still in their primitive condition, much as they were when Stanley's expedi- tion descended the river in 1877 and fought one of its most desperate battles for existence with this fierce cannibal tribe of the Aruwimi. In fact, Grenfell was able to appreciate the con- dition of affairs on the Upper Congo as it was before the white man had time to effect any change in the polity of these people. Man fio-ured in these regions as the fiercest of the carnivores. Town warred against town for the procuring of human flesh. Now Grenfell was to meet the advance of the Arab movement. After Stanley's successful descent of the Congo in 1877, Arab ivory hunters and slave raiders under such leaders as Tipu-Tipu (Hammad bin Muhammad) had gradually advanced northwards and westwards from Nyangwe, that Arab station in the Manyema country on the Lualaba-Congo which had been visited by Livingstone in 1871. About 1879 the Arabs had established themselves pretty firmly at Stanley Falls. They had also crossed westwards from the main Congo to the Lomami, a river which flows almost parallel with the Lualaba- Congo. The Manyema or Bakusu people after having been decimated by the Arab attacks had made common cause with these coast people," only the leaders of whom could be con- ' Grenfell states that another name for this river is Mbinga. Both Stanley and he also quote the alternative title Biyerre. " Aruwimi '' seems to be really a Stanleyan mis-hearing of Luhimi or Ruimi. The same name for a river is frequently found amongst the Bantu people of Equatorial Central Africa, and is variously spelt by Europeans Wimi, Ruimi, Uruimi, according as it is given with the prefix or without. ^ Generally known by the Swahili name "Wangwana" or its local rendering Balungwana, meaning "civilized people." Another nickname amongst the Aruwimi- Lomami people was Tamba-Tamba. The Arabs in their turn spoke of the indigenes generically as lVa-ske9izi (the conquered), and this term has confused many an un- wary explorer, not even excepting Dr. L. Frobenius, who mistakenly records the Bashenzi amongst the native tribes of the Congo. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 125 sidered Arabs with moderately light skin, prominent noses, and long beards. Most of the so-called Arabs were almost entirely negro in physical appearance, though of course Muhammadan in religion. Havincj witnessed therefore the cannibalistic regime in full swing on the northern bend of the Congo, Grenfell was now about to come in contact with the results of Arab devastations. After steaming away from the hostile Basoko towards the mouth of the Lomami past a depopulated shore, he saw late in the afternoon on the eastern horizon what he took to be the smoke of salt-makers' fires — for the natives of this and other parts of Africa burn the waterside vegetation in order to make salt out of the potash. "Shortly after midnight we learnt that what we had taken to be the light of a salt-maker's fire had been the flames of a burning town. A long line of canoes came dropping downstream close in- shore, flying from a band of Arab raiders in pursuit of slaves and ivory. While talking with these poor people, wreckage of all kinds commenced floating by, and for nearly three hours an unceasing and continuous stream of hut-roofs, beds, stools, calabashes, fishing-nets, ropes, and all the gear that had been thrown into the river, partly from the towns and partly from the canoes by those runaways who found themselves hard-pressed, or from those captured by the Arabs, who would not be bothered by such plunder." The next morning they reached the smoking ruins of Yambuli town, which had possessed about four tiiousand inhabi- tants. Beyond that they came to another native settlement which had been quite destroyed. Here there were men linger- ing among the still smoking ruins, who called out to the crew of the steamer, " We have nothino" left, nothing ! Our houses are burnt, our plantations are destroyed, and our women and children all gone." One of the men pointed to the islands across the river in the direction of the Lomami mouth (here called the Boloko River, and higher up the Loomi or Lolami) and said, "The men who did it are over there." Grenfell crossed the river in the Peace after passing more burning ruins, and visited the Arab camp at the mouth of the Lomami. There were here about seven hundred coast men and Manyema, under the command of Mwinyi Omani, the head-man in the service of Tipu-Tipu. From this point eastwards to the Stanley Falls the riverain country was quite disorganized. Thousands of fugitives were attempting flight in their canoes, and nearly all the villages were abandoned or the inhabitants were skulking in the plantations. The women and children 126 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO were wailing and lamenting. Naturally, under these circum- stances it was very difficult to buy food, though hitherto this region had been noted for its plenty. On Christmas Eve 1884 a visit was paid to Tipu-Tipu, who was encamped at Stanley Falls. After leaving with Tipu-Tipu a few letters for despatch to Europe via Zanzibar, Grenfell decided to return, and steamed back to the mouth of the Lomami or Boloko. 49. A KLfc.ET OF CANOE DWELLINGS AT ISANGI, MOUTH OF LOMAMI KIVEU, 189I (In the days of the early Arab troubles many Lomami people took to living in their canoes, a practice formerly adopted for trading purposes.) This river rises as far south as 8° 40' S. Lat. in the highlands of Samba, not very far from the Lubudi affluent of the upper Lualaba.' In the same region it was believed, even for a considerable time after Grenfell's explorations, that the upper Lomami really flowed into the Sankuru and Kasai. Grenfell at the beginning of 1885 steamed up it from the Congo con- fluence about 140 miles (not counting the many windings).' ' The Lualaba probably rises in about 1 1° 50' S. Lat., on the northern flanks of the Chafukuma ranye, which also jjives rise to the Kafue, Luanga, and Kabompo of the Zambezi basin. - t/renfell in his 1885 visit appends these notes as to the lower Lomami : — " Dilanga a very populous district. IMpelele (or disc worn in the upper lip) common, and usually made of bufYalo's or wild pig's teeth. \"ery fine country ; plenty of bananas and palms. No mosquitoes. Forest not so dense, very fine Calamus palms, abundance of Crinum lilies. Some of the people have their teeth THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 127 The people on its banks were very hostile, partly from native savagery, and partly owing to their exasperation at the Arab raids. The sides of the Peace could be defended with special blinds which acted as arrow-guards, and but for this protection it would have been difficult to have ascended the Lomami on this occasion without serious casualties, as the natives sent out flights of poisoned arrows against her as she came within reach. The river flowed for the most part through dense forests. The people south of Dilanga belonged in the main to the great Balolo race which occupies so much of the country immediately to the south of the central Congo. At a point in about 1° 30' S. Lat. Grenfell's steamer had to stop. The river had contracted to a width of only eighty yards. It was thirty feet deep, and the current was flowing at the rate of about four knots an hour. The altitude above sea- level of the stream at this point was about 1,350 feet. A. Del- commune subsequently traced the Lomami northwards till the stream revealed by Cameron had become one river with the " Bojoko " explored by Grenfell at the beginning of 1885. After returning from the Lomami Grenfell steamed down the Congo westwards, and once more tackled the Mubangi in February 1885. This he now followed up resolutely for two hundred miles till he reached the Zongo (Grenfell) Rapids in about 4° 40' N. Lat., by far the most northerly point yet reached in the exploration of the Congo basin. The river which up to this point constantly bore the name of Liboko could only be the Wele-Makua of Schweinfurth's discovery in 1870.^ When filed down to the gums. Knives and spears in great abundance. They call smelted iron lubulu. " Yaponga people use wide-bladed paddles, and sit down in their canoes. The canoes have squared ends in the stern (like those of Fernando P6). Between Dilanga and the Congo, the Lomami people do not employ canoes, but rafts or catamarans. Many monkeys and monitor lizards in this Yaponga country." 1 When Schweinfurth, following up the hints given by the \'enetian traveller Miani, crossed the Nile water parting and reached the great Wele River flowing west- wards, he thought he had lighted on the upper Shari, which flows into Lake Chad. It was not considered possible then that the Congo basin could extend so far "north. But when Stanley proved that the main stream reached to more than two degrees north of the Equator he felt that the Wele must belong to the Congo system, though he made it join the Congo through the Aruwimi. It fell to Lieutenant Vangele of the African International Association to complete the connection of the Wele-Makua (under the name of Dua) with Grenfell's Liboko-Mubangi, but it was Grenfell's journey as far north as Zongo or Grenfell Falls in 1885 that caused most geographers to surmise that the Mubangi and the Wele were one. On his second ascent of the Mubangi Grenfell was able to get in a boat past the Zongo cataract to the region wherein the stream was flowing west from east. Some vague, vague hint of the existence of the Mubangi seems to have reached Italian or Portuguese explorers in the latter seventeenth century, and coupled with the stories of Hausa traders about the Benue a hundred years later suggested to English geographers in the early nineteenth century the Congo and the Niger being one river. 128 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO his realization of thie Mubangi as perhaps the most important affluent of the Congo reached Europe in the summer of 1885 it found Stanley incredulous and a little petulant, for he had just issued a book and maps dealing with the Congo basin in which the existence of the Mubangi — independent of the Sanga-Nana — was completely overlooked. But the Belgian geographer A. J. Wauters at once identified the Mubangi as the lower course of Schweinfurth's Wele, and Grenfell had attained to the first rank in African exploration. Stanley after his return to the Congo in 1879 had been too much occupied constructing a road to Stanley Pool and convey- ing steamers in sections to resume exploration pure and simple until 1882. He then steamed up the Kwa and Mfini into Lake Leopold H, which he named and mapped. In 1883 he discov- ered Lake Mantumba or Ntomba, and by 1884 he had delineated the characteristic features of the main Congo as far east as Stanley Falls with some greater degree of accuracy than characterized his maps of 1877. But he had added nothing to our knowledge — not even intelligent guesses — as to the courses and relative importance of the main affluents of the Congo. In fact his surmises as to the subsidiary features of the Congo basin proved to be quite inaccurate. He divided up the immense Wele watershed between the Aruwimi (which really receives the rainfall immediately west of the Semliki and Albert Nyanza) and the Rubi, a relatively insignificant affluent of the northern Congo, explored by Grenfell in 1885. The existence of the premier affluent of the Congo, the Mubangi — Liboko — or Dua, is confused with the Sanga (which Stanley styles the Nana), and also with a hypothetical Lake Ngiri. It is true that Stanley records the name Mbanghi, and places its outlet more or less correctly in correspondence with the now well- known Mubangi. This information was probably derived from Grenfell, who discovered the outlet of this river about February 20th 1884, when on the boat journey afore-mentioned.^ Grenfell's second (and longest) journey up the Mubangi was accompanied by a careful survey and by the following notes : — The volume of the Mubangi at its junction with the Congo is about 200,000 cubic feet per second ; its colour pale brick-red. In the flat marshy country of the Baloi (about 1° 50' N. Lat.) the characteristic formation of the surface is a ferruginous con- > It should be remembered that in the map issued by Grenfell and Comber in 1884-5, thougli there is the mouth of a river faintly indicated where the Mubangi joins the Congo, no name is applied to it on the map, though it is stated {Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society^ June 1885, p. 362) to be the Mubangi River. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 129 glomerate floor in horizontal beds, suggesting- at no remote o'eolooical date an immense lake bottom. The sacred ibis is common about here. The Baloi people shave all the hair off the front and top of the head, leaving a kind of crest at the back. They wear for armour in warfare sleeveless waistcoats of buffalo or elephant hide. These Baloi " waistcoats " we found as far north as 4° 8' N. Lat. At about 1° 30' N. Lat. Grenfell noticed houses with mud- based walls, and bark-cloth in use among the natives. The people were armed with sharpened sticks for spears and carried oval shields. On this second attempt (February-March 1885) to ascend the Mubangi Grenfell was under the disadvantage of navigating the river at the height of the dry season, and the river had fallen quite four feet since his previous visit in October. Still, there were navigable channels between the islands with which — like the central Congo — the Mubangi is studded. Journeying up- stream, the " lake bottom " formation continues as far north as 2° 30' N. Lat. From this point southwards its course is nearly parallel to the main Congo. But above 2° 30' N. Lat. the hilly country begins, and the bottom of the river instead of beino^ sand is rock. At 2° 35' the people wear necklaces of human teeth and bore large holes in the lobes of the ears. At 2° 42' he notes, " Much honey ; elephants ; ducks ; oil palms." About Bunyembe (3° 10') the people are of large stature, of a mixed type and speaking an "unknown language." Their houses are like those of the Upper Congo at Bopoto. At Busembe (Lat. 3° 10' N.) the men were quite naked. The fine-looking population possessed plenty of goats. They were iron-workers and there seemed to be abundance of copper in the country. At 3° 30' N. Lat. the women were seen wear- ing grass skirts and large, heavy copper collars. Their cheeks were cicatrized in patterns. The current at 3° 30' N. Lat. was 500 feet per minute. The cliffs or banks were often fifty feet above the river. Oil palms were scarce. The Usnea lichen was found hanging from the trees in great profusion. Cotton was grown and was in blossom in February. At Lat. 3° 50' N. the rocks at dead low water (February) almost threatened an obstacle to naviga- tion, but subsequent experience has shown that the Mubangi during exceptional rainy seasons is navigable for small steamers as far as Banzyville, or almost half-way to the sources of the Wele-Makua. Even the rapids at Banzyville are pass- I. — K 132 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO able in the height of the flood season. Boats and canoes, if not steam launches, can at any rate penetrate as far along the course of the Mubangi-Wele to the east as Yakoma, at the junction of the Mbomu^ and the Wele. It was noticeable that above 3° 30' N, Lat. the plaintain or banana became scarce, but manioc was abundantly cultivated. The houses began to have tall conical roofs. There were fresh-water oysters {Aithe- rid) on the beaches. At about 4° 4' Grenfell was attacked by about fifty canoes, many of them large ones. Spears, arrows, sticks, and stones were thrown at the steamer. He afterwards landed, however, made friends, and bought a lot of spears, knives, etc., from the attacking force. At 4° 8' he "sighted very light-coloured bush people . . . Barumbe or Bambenga." At about 4° 22' he notes that large kauri shells were useful for trade and that ground-nuts were cultivated. At 4° 27' N. they found the river breaking through a range of quartz and red clay hills a thousand feet high, and it was now seen to be coming from a much more easterly direction. Before attempting to pass through this gap in the high hills, where immense masses of quartz break the river up into a series of rapids (the Zongo or Grenfell Falls),- Grenfell considered it wise to anchor the Peace and do some prospecting in the rowing- boat which was towed alongside. On the other side of this difficult passage (through which the Peace passed in safety) the natives were no longer friendly. Men, women, and children took refuge in "crows' nests," little forts which they had built at the bifurcation of the branches of tall, straight-stemmed trees. They reached these eyries by means of rope ladders which they hauled up after them, and from these refuges they shot poisoned arrows at the steamer. As the travellers on the boat were pro- tected by the arrow-proof wire netting already alluded to, the vessel continued on her way without taking notice of this hostile reception. The natives regarded this as cowardice on the part ^ Subsequent to Grenfell's journeys, the Mbomu, an important northern affluent of the Wele, was chosen together with the Mubangi as the boundary between French Congo and the Congo Independent State, and this boundary was subsequently recog- nized in its relations with the Egyptian Sudan by the British Government. It was along the Mubangi and the Mbomu that Marchand made his truly remarkable journey in 1895-7. From the upper waters of the Mbomu he crossed the watershed to the Sue affluent of the Bahr-al-Ghazal, and so descended to the Nile at Fashoda. - The altitude of the Mubangi above sea-level below the Zongo Rapids Grenfell computed at 1,296 feet. The volume of water in the Mubangi at Zongo was only 70,000 cubic feet per second in the dry season. The falls begin on the north-east at Mokwangai, and continue southwards till the Zongo barrier is passed. They have no general name, and might well be christened forthwith the " Grenfell Falls." Grenfell, who has done so much for Congo geography, has no local memorial on the map like so many other explorers, great and small. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MUBANGI 133 of the mysterious invaders, and the villages in front as well as those behind sent out fleets of canoes against the Peace till she was surrounded by these wasps. As evening was approaching, Grenfell considered discretion to be the better part of valour, and turned the steamer round downstream. He soon left the canoes behind, but just as night fell, and they were not yet past the last of the hostile villages, the steamer struck against the rocky bottom in a shallow channel, and three minutes afterwards two of her watertight compartments were flooded and her freeboard was on a level with the stream. There was nothing to be done but to run the vessel on shore, whether the natives were friends or foes ; and the whole of the night was spent in closing the three principal holes in the sides with boards, clay, and cotton 50. A POT FROM THE UPPER MUBANGI— RED AND BLUE-GREY waste: in such a way that when the vessel again proceeded on her course the water could be baled out more rapidly than it came in. Thus they managed to get through the gap in the hills and back into the friendly country, where the steamer was thoroughly overhauled on a sandbank and the necessary repairs completed. After that, the rest of the journey down the Mubangi was most agreeable, as the reception was invariably friendly. Even where the people had been suspicious or war- like on the first two ascents of the river they were now clamorous that the white man should stop and build. The local names of the Mubangi (besides that word, which is derived from the trade language of the Babangi or Bayanzi) are Mai ma Bobangi and Liboko, in its lower course ; Jila above 3° 30' N. Lat. ; and beyond that eastwards, Kwango, Dua, Makua, Linga, Ngungu, Nimba, Bonso, Were or Wele, Kibali, and Kibbi. 134 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Even before Grenfell had discovered the Mubangi, and after Stanley had revealed the northern bend of the Congo, philologists had been wondering where the Bantu borderland lay in this direction. The researches of Schweinfurth, Nach- tigal, Barth, and Baikie had shown that at any rate the Bantu languages did not occupy the region of the upper Wele, the Shari, or the Benue. How far south did the non- Bantu tongues extend, how far north of the main Congo did the Bantu languages hold the field? It has been the peculiar honour of the missionaries Grenfell and Stapleton^ to have revealed to us the main facts on this question. Stapleton, as I shall show later, was the first to discover that the main Congo did not lie wholly within the Bantu domain on the north-east (Bamanga enclave); Grenfell in this journey of 1885 to the Zongo Falls noted that when he passed north of Lat. 3° 2' — most of all, north of Lat. 3° 30' on the Mubangi — he had left the Bantu-speaking peoples for a race (probably the Banza) whose language seemed to be of quite a different order. The small vocabulary which he recorded then and there, scattered in and out of his pencilled survey, is of a most interesting character. By some accident it has never seen the light till it is now published (pp. 838-40), as the pages on which the vocab- bulary was inscribed were forgotten at the bottom of an old travelling desk, and were only found after Grenfell's death. W. H. Stapleton in January 1897 journeyed up the Mubangi, and also observed that when he had passed 3° 30' N. Lat. the speech was non-Bantu. He recorded a few words of this language, which he called Mpombo, and of which he could not trace the affinities : it is probably the speech of the Banza people. Grenfell's vocabulary written down in February 1885 is fuller than Stapleton's, and is the one dealt with in chapter xxxi. Lieutenant Vangele in 1887, and subsequently, continued Grenfell's explorations, and followed the whole course of the Mubangi to its junction with Junker's Makua, Schweinfurth's Wele, and Vankerckhoven's Kibali. Eastward of the Zongo Falls the great river was surveyed by Georges Le Marinel, a celebrated Belgian explorer. ' The Rev. W. II. Stapleton went to the Baptist Mission on the Congo in 1889 and worked on the upper river till 1906. The Rev. Wm. Forfeitt's discover>' of the non-Bantu Ndonga speech near the northern bend of the Congo is also noteworthy. CHAPTER IX THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND ROM the middle of March to the beQinnins: of Auoust 1885 Grenfell remained at Stanley Pool, occupying J_ himself with the work of the Mission at Arthington, and with the planning- of transport between Stanley Pool and the Lower Congo. He also inspected other places on the shore of Stanley Pool in the vicinity of Nshasa with a view to more suitable sites for the Mission transport work in connection with the upper river, such as, for example, a "slip" for repair- in the Peace. On i\ugust 2nd 1885 he started on the third voysige of the Peace, accompanied by Von Francois (a German explorer), by Mrs. Grenfell, and his little daughter, and by eight of the school- children of the Mission. On this and other occasions it was the practice of the agents of the Baptist Missionary Society to take the more promising scholars of their mission school on journeys about the Congo and its affluents. This opened their eyes to the world outside their own village, and enabled them to ex- change ideas with the savages. They also acted from time to time as interpreters ; because not infrequently these school- children were slaves or the sons or dauohters of slaves that had been stranded at Stanley Pool and still retained some knowledge of the language spoken in their original homes. Thus on an earlier occasion Grenfell had manao-ed to Qet into communica- tion with the natives high up the Mubangi River through one of the school-children of his Mission. It was decided on this third voyage of the Peace to explore some of the mighty affluents entering the Congo in the equatorial region from the east or south. On their way up- stream past the Ngombe town of Ilebo they noticed the corpse of a woman hanp^ing- over the water from one of the branches of a great tree. At first it was thought that she had been executed in punishment for adultery, but on being questioned the natives said she had been guilty of a much more serious 136 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO crime. They had passed a law that all goods, especially food, must be sold to the white man at a price far greater than the local market value. What the minimum sale price was to be, Grenfell does not mention, but states that the woman having charged the white men of Lukolela ''only double" the local market price for eggs, had been con- victed of breakino^ the fiscal law, and had suffered death in consequence. On August 24th the Peace entered the Qreat River Lu- longo (called by Grenfell at the time Lulanga). At its confluence with the Congo this river is onlv six hundred yards wide, though its depth and cur- rent evidence its importance. It rises to hio;h flood in September, several weeks be- fore the Ruki, far- ther south, reaches its greatest volume. A few miles above its confluence with the Congo it spreads out to three-quarters of a mile in width. A little more than a hundred miles from the Cong-o confluence the Lopori River joins the Lulongo, which above this con- fluence is known as the ]\Iarino-a.^ Grenfell steamed for 51. CRENFELL'S ■CALAMUS' PALM, IX TWO STAGES OF GROWTH (This climbing palm is really A ncistrophyllum sccundiflorttin . It is found all over the equatorial Congo basin, growing to heights of two and three hundred feet ) ' At this point in his journal Grenfell makes this natural history note on Lulongo scenery : " There were many parrots, and great numbers of butterflies, which last pounce on things in the water like a bird. Very tall calamus palms, pandanus, African teak, gum copal, many orchids." "At the junction of the Lopori with the Lulongo there is high ground— red clay clifTs rising from fifty to one hundred THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 137 about four hundred miles up the Lulongo-Maringa, making the return journey to the main Congo in less than a week owing to the help of the current. [In December 1902 he notes that the average speed of the Lulongo current was 128 feet per minute.] This journey had brought him — whether he knew it or not at the time — to within a hundred miles of the Lomami. In fact, the Congo basin differs from any other part of tropical Africa by the possession of navigable waterways arranged by Nature in such a fashion as to permeate the terri- tory in all directions (see map on page 495). 52. SCENE TYPICAL OF FLOOD-TIME ON THE RIVER, WATER UP TO THE HOUSES The land on either side of the lower Lulongo is flat and much under water in the rainy season. As a rule the villages are built on raised mounds — ngtinda — which are immense ant- hills of the termites flattened and levelled. When there are no anthills or they are not big enough, the riverain people build on the wooded islands ; but these villages are abandoned in flood time and the population retreats to the mainland at some distance from the river. Here they embank their villages with a wattle fence and heap up earth against it, feet above the river." " Many of the islands in the Lulongo are covered with houses. The principal trees seen by this river are bombax, oil palm (scarce), calamus, climb- ing palm, pandanus, and borassus. Many borassus, extraordinary abundance of bananas. . . . Abundance of fowls, goats, and sheep ; but no tobacco plant." 138 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Higher up the river the houses continue to be on posts, but apparently for other reasons than that of floods, as they are raised on stilts even when the land is above flood-level, "very suggestive of prehistoric lake dwelling-houses." In some places the posts that support the houses are five feet above the ground-level. All the cooking in the houses is done upstairs. Canoes are sharp-pointed at both ends (not square at the stern, like those of the Lomami) and sometimes have a small hook in the bow. The paddles, like those of the Babuma, have holes in them, lined with brass. Traps are laid for crocodiles on fallen logs. Cloth was (in 1885) of no value. Kauris were used as ornaments ; the best currency was beads and brass rods. Grenfell states that the men of the lower Lulongo {? A^goDibe people) are frequently seen with beards, and that he saw one woman with quite long hair. The people on this river when they wish to call attention to anything hiss loudly. Their faces (on the lower Lulongo) are often marked with semicircular cicatrices between ear and eye in three concentric rings ; or there is one big row down the middle of the forehead and three side rows from eye to ear. The women have bean-sized lumps regularly spaced over the hips, abdomen, and back. Knives are worn without sheaths on the thigh, handles tucked under waist-string. The men have a kind of suspen- sory bandage to carry the scrotum, "and a flap of skin hangs down over this part in front." ^ The women wear a small bit of plantain leaf. Their necks, arms, and legs are without brass rings or ornaments. On the Lulongo brass bracelets and anklets seem to be specially reserved for the chiefs and im- portant men. These also wear monkey-skin helmets- orna- mented with brass plates four inches broad. Though here and there suspicious, the natives along this river were on the whole friendly, at that period, to the white man. When the small boat of the Peace was sunk through an accident and an over- load of firewood, the natives came out in their canoes, assisted to salvage the fuel, and later on raised the boat. The Lulongo- Maringa was found to flow through a (then) populous and wealthy district, " with a magnificently rich soil." Slaves, it is true, were being brought down in numbers in the canoes,^ but ' This rather obscure reference in Grenfell's notes suggests that these people may be like the extraordinary " Wanda " people of the Lulua \'alley. These are stated by Henrique de Carvalho to strain and pull down the skin of the abdomen till it in some way serves as a " tegipudenda.'" ^ Grenfell notes that a Colobus monkey (called' by the natives Dibuko or Mabuko), black with a white throat, was found on the upper Lulongo. ^ It is noteworthy from the observations of Stanley, Grenfell, the present writer, and others who visited and described the Upper Congo between 1S77 and iS86, that THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 139 enormous quantities of ivory were also being conveyed to the main river. Supplies of food were extremely plentiful. Though friendly enough to the white man, one village was making war on another, the war being carried on under the observation of the white man. There was not much loss of life, but prisoners were grabbed as slaves: and (in 1885) the deaths of all prominent persons of either sex were celebrated by the killing of slaves. In discussing the population of the lower Lulongo in his notebooks Grenfell propounds a theory that the Bayanzi or Babangi people originally came from this region ; but he adduces no facts in support of this theory. High up the Maringa or upper Lulongo River, at the town of Gitabi, he noticed a difference in the population. It was here that the houses were for the most part raised on posts some four or five feet above the ground. The tribal marks or facial adornments, instead of being a multitude of great blebs starring the whole face, were limited to a parallel row of lumps as big as peas down the centre of the nose. The bodies were covered with raised scars the shape and size of large beans, about an inch apart. Instead of using spears and sheathed knives, they carried bows and arrows, and wore unsheathed knives upon their thighs. They were clever and industrious at forging iron [" there are many blacksmiths here "], and evidently made an abundance of weapons and implements which were sold lower down in the Congo basin. Cloth was here at a discount. An empty biscuit tin or a thimbleful of beads were much more prized than yards of Manchester cotton. These people were probably members of the widespread Balolo race, locally called Bamongo. After returning to the main Congo from the Lulongo, Grenfell started to explore the Buruki, Ruki, Mai Mohindu, or " Black " River of Stanley. About sixty miles up the Buruki before the Congo Free State got any serious hold over the country or the Arabs had penetrated beyond the Lualaba and the Lomami, a westward-directed slave trade was in full force in the Congo basin. These slaves, like the ivory, were brought down the tributaries to the main Congo, and for the most part handed over to the trading tribes of the Bangala and the Babangi (Bayanzi). By these latter they were either conveyed to the Bangala towns on the Upper Congo (where they were eaten), or they were transported by the same traders to Stanley Pool. Here, down to the very commencement of Stanley's operations in 1879 they were still resold as slaves for the white man, more or less. Prior to the activity of the British gunboats in the 'sixties and 'seventies of the last century these Congo slaves were still shipped across to Brazil, Cuba, and Porto Rico. During the 'seventies, when it was less and less easy to evade the vigilance of the British cruisers, these Congo slaves were styled Krumanos, and were employed by most of the European trading houses on the Lower Congo. Many also followed the overland route to San Salvador and thence found their way into Angola. I40 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO he arrived at the confluence of the Moboyo (which he called the Busira) with the main stream, now known as the Juapa.^ From its direction he took the Busira or Moboyo at first to be the principal course of the river. This he ascended for about two hundred miles (in a direct line) as far as the village of Mburi or Bori. A little beyond this village the Busira became unnavig- able, and the people of this upper portion of the river were of very doubtful friendship, often saluting the expedition with flights of arrows ["the bows are taller than the men that use them "], and then offering to trade, once again resuming their hostility if the expedition approached within range. "When being asked why they are following the steamer along the river with bows and arrows they say they understand a big canoe, but a big thing that goes without paddles on the water they are afraid of. If we stop to go in towards the bank they will run away." Descending the Busira, the explorers noticed that below Tako there was a stretch of about eighty miles of more or less uninhabited country, which as far as the eye could reach seemed at one monotonous level. This country along the Busira was devoid of oil palms and the Borassus fan palm was seldom met with. The pandanus and the climbing calamus were abundant in the swampy reaches. At Mumbembe the rocky reaches characteristic of so much of the Congo basin reappeared with towns built on them. On the ascent of the Busira a few days before, the reception at the villages had been alternately friendly and suspicious, but on the return journey they were wholly friendly. This friendli- ness, as the result of the considerate behaviour of the Peace s crew, had extended by rumour across to the Juapa River on the north, and when the Peace turned up the Juapa, which is the best name for the main stream of the Buruki, the party travelled for at least one hundred and fifty miles through "one of the prettiest stretches of country we had seen during the whole journey," and past villages which though here and there showing suspicion were for the most part friendly. The people on both banks of the Juapa were cannibals. On the 15th of September Grenfell came upon a group who were just about to kill a man and eat him. He tried without success to redeem him for a cash payment. In another place ' "In its upper waters the natives call it Luapa^' (Grenfell). The Belgians misspell the name as " Chuapa." As to the lower portion of the river, he writes : "Up the Ruki there are many palms. A conglomerate formation. The towns are built on lofty points." THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 141 they offered him a fine-looking woman as a wife in exchange for a plump boatman whom they wanted to eat! "Yet there are plenty of oil palms up the Juapa, also sugar-cane and cassava." After passing a short stretch of uninhabited forest ["there is a sandstone formation where rocks are visible "] more villages with possible supplies of provisions were reached, and on 28th September (1885) the expedition stopped, and attempted to enter into rela- tions with the people. They had passed several small fishing- villaofes,^ studiously keeping at a distance so that the people might begin to understand that the monster was not animated by hostile inten- tions. " Notwithstand- ing our most friend- ly attitude, they hur- ried off their women and children and household goods in canoes up the little creeks which are so numerous alonor the river banks, leaving the villages empty." prevailed upon one 53. YOUNG FORM OF ANCISTROPHYLLUM SECUNDI- FLORUM CLIMBING PALM (Beginning like this, the Ancisirophyllum gradually develops barbed hooks and segmented fronds, and scrambles to the tops of the highest trees.) However, just before sundown Grenfell old man to reply to his questions, and before steaming away he put a few beads into a soup- plate and set it floating on the stream, telling the old man that when he thought the steamer was at a safe distance he could come off in his canoe and pick it up. This he did subsequently to his satisfaction. Finding a good anchorage a short distance beyond, the steamer stopped for the night in spite of the hostile attitude of the people. After some parley- ing, the people said, " Well, we will look at one another in the morning. If we have anything to sell we will trade." Later ^ Grenfell notes here that the natives were actually "overfishing" the Juapa, and that they complained of the growingjdearth of fish. 142 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO on a chief or medicine man came down from the inland town of Bwanga and told the steamer party that he had arrived to talk, as the people had run away and told him that " something- terrible " had come. " It was dark now, and the medicine man could not see anything. We were to be sure to stay where we were and they would remain in the village, and in the morning we should see each other. After some confabulation it was decided that the natives should anchor a canoe-load of firewood half-way from the shore to the steamer. We should send our 54. THE RED FRUITS AND SEED OF THE CLIMBING ANCISTROPHYLLUM PALM (The seeds are sometimes strung together as necklaces. The fruit is slightly sweet and edible.) boats for the firewood, pay for it, and retire. This was satis- factorily arranged, and then they ventured alongside of the boat, but were much too afraid of the steamer to come near it." At this point on the Juapa or Luapa (as it began to be called) he noted that the river still might rise another five feet above its level at the end of September. At Eyombe and the towns immediately to the east a very hostile demonstration was made. The din of the big war drums was terrible. On the beaches in front of the big towns hundreds of armed men, painted red and black and white, were dancing frantically or derisively "turning their sterns towards the white man in derision." The air was thick with arrows, THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 143 probably all poisoned. The Peace, protected by the wire arrow- guards, was able to steam quite close inshore. Gra#ious over- tures, however, had no effect, and the villages were hostile even when the steamer passed them on her subsequent descent of the river. Fortunately, further on the people of Lokuku, Baromo, and Losaka were friendly, or at worst timid, so that the expedition was able to renew its supplies of provisions.^ Beyond Losaka," however, in the Buputu country (which was not far away from the Lomami and therefore had heard of Arab raids and disliked strangers, in consequence) the natives offered determined resistance to the further progress of the steamer. The enemy lay concealed in ambush at a narrow part of the river, and directed a flight of poisoned arrows on the Peace, fired at short range and with remarkable effect. Some of these penetrated the awning of boards, one of them nearly transfixed Grenfell, while the rest of the crew had narrow escapes at being wounded. The hostility still continuing, the expedition stopped at Bokuku and turned back. The return journey to the Congo and down to Stanley Pool — a thousand miles or so — was made without check or disagreeable incident, and Grenfell was once more back at his head station (Arthing- ton) in October 1885. In his notebooks or on the margins of his maps Grenfell adds the following particulars about the Juapa region, as it appeared to him in 1885 : — On the Busira the people are marked with cicatrices from cheekbone to cheekbone across the tip of the nose. The women have straight cicatrices round the abdomen and thighs. Sometimes the facial pattern in blebs radiates like a fan from the base of the nose over the middle of the forehead. Some of the Busira people slit their noses. The houses in this district are long and rectangular. Bows and arrows are the weapons, and the bows are six feet in length. Kauris are in use and are obtained from the people in the south. At Nkole on the Juapa the people speak Bayanzi.^ ' On the Busira journey Grenfell notes the curious food supplies brought to him by the natives, some of which he had to reject, as they consisted of " smoked snakes and caterpillars." Caterpillars are much valued for food in this Juapa country, many kinds being eaten of different flavours. Each kind is known by the name of the tree on which it feeds. ^ At Losaka Grenfell was asked, "Is the steamer your home? Have you any country ?" At one place he inquired the name of the river. The reply was, " Don't you know ? You are the people of the river, and therefore must know the name." In this region they applied the word Ngali to " river," a term allied to the Nzadi, Njali of Western Congoland. ' i.e. the Congo trade language. 144 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The banks on either side the Juapa are flooded in the rainy season. The houses are, on the lower part of the river, long and rectangular ; higher up they are square and made of mats. The people, though cannibals, had abundance of food — fowls, goats (which they call " N ta "), plantains, manioc, sugar - cane, and oil palm. They do not use kauris as a currency, but brass rods which they call "lunkundu." Bows and arrows were not in common use on the Juapa ; the men pre- ferred spears as wea- pons and consequently carried shields. Their spears were shaped like exaggerated arum leaves. The Bakutu tribe (? Pygmies), how- ever, on the south bank of the upper Juapa used bows and shot their arrows with wreat accuracy. In the Lo- saka district far up the Juapa (where the river is called Luapa) the people use wooden clubs or "cleavers." PS5. (OlBATWA BOW, ARROWS, AND QUIVER FROM Uprp anH lowpr r1r.wn THE JUAPA REGION. (2) A "WOODEN CLUB" lOWer QOW n OR CLEAVER FROM THE UPPER JUAPA the Hver, the shields are not made of wicker-work or of hide, but of slabs of wood. The women on the upper "Luapa" are nude. The Balolo people here (not far from the Lomami) knock out the incisor teeth of the upper jaw or file them down level with the gum. They decorate their faces with big weals on the sides of the cheeks near the ears, and place four knobs over the nose. At Diloku or Iloko on the middle Juapa Grenfell landed to visit a chief who was by repute an elderly dandy. He jots down this note in his survey-book (see illustration, p. 7) : — THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 145 " The chief, a man about sixty to seventy years old, was reddened to a nicety,^ and wore a white, knitted cap decked with parrots' red tail-feathers : also an otter-skin loin-cloth and belt. This last held his highly polished copper-handled knife. In his right hand was a spear, and a shield was slung over the left shoulder : in the left hand was his pronged chair. A large ivory trumpet hung over the right shoulder and completed his equip- ment." An interesting- feature in these journeys up the Juapa and Busira was the discovery of dwarf tribes, known generically as Bativa and evidently belonging to the " Congo pygmy " stock. Most of these Batwa are a light reddish colour in their skins, and even their head hair has a reddish tinge occasionally. Grenfell had met with them in 1884 on the Ikelemba River. " In the Juapa country" (he writes) "they are great hunters and come to the villages of the larger people to sell the meat. They are known by the tribal names of Barumbi or Barumbo, Bapoto or Putu, Batwa or Joapi." He also calls them else- where " Bakutu " of the Batamba country, south of the upper Juapa. These red-skinned pygmies (according to Grenfell) wander westwards as far as the main Congo. [Lord Mount- morres has traced them as far west as the eastern shores of Lake Ntomba, and the present writer saw one in 1883 at Bolobo.] He adds in another part of his notes further particulars as to the red dwarfs met with between the main Conoo and the Juapa :— " The Batwa in this neighbourhood have little or no neck, but big heads, and beards. Their height is three feet six inches to four feet six inches. They build houses and live in them for a month or so, and then move on, lodging in the trees whilst 01 voyage. They never farm. They marry within the family circle and have many children. The bigger tribes are jealous of them on this account. The dwarfs have numerous chiefs amongst them. They sometimes daze and dazzle their enemies by setting fire to the bush, and in their wars kill women as well as men, often making war at night. They are said to be cannibals. They have three parallel lines of cicatrices down the forehead. Twenty to thirty families move together. They trap game in pitfalls." Between October 1885 and February 1886 Grenfell remained at Stanley Pool. This time was spent on mission work, on arrears of accounts connected with the Peace, and in making copious notes on natural history, native stories, sayings, ideas, and languages. He also interviewed at Arthington Station the many explorers now entering or returning from the Congo basin, I. — L ' With powdered camwood bark and oil. 146 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO and compiled from their information — from 1886 onwards — a commencement of the store of notes and extracts which to- gether with his own original researches are utihzed throughout this book. On the 24th of February 1886 Grenfell started again in the Peace (the fourth journey) to explore the Kasai and Lulua rivers. This journey was not only undertaken in order to prospect for openings for mission work, but to assist the explorer VYissmann/ who had come out for the Kingr of the Belgians to explore the southern basin of the Congo. A passage also was given for the journey up the Kasai to 13aron von Nimptsch, the Administrator of the Congo State before the arrival of Sir Francis de Winton. Apparently Wissmann had preceded Grenfell, either in one of the small steamers of the Congo State or in a rowing-boat, and had gone on to the mouth of the Kwa to await Grenfell. This, from his own point of view, was fortunate, as the Peace met with a serious disaster near the northern exit from Stanley Pool. At half-past one, in the middle of the day, she struck sud- denly on an unsuspected reef, and the whole fore part of the steamer, as far as the engine-room, in three minutes was full of water, while the vessel sank to the level of the river. The boat took off Mrs. Grenfell, her little dauQ-hter, and most of the ' Hermann Wissmann (afterwards von Wissmann), a young lieutenant in the Prussian army, was born at Frankfurt on the Oder in Germany in 1853. He came out to Angola with Dr. Pogge in 1880, and crossing all the great rivers of south-central Congoland reached Nyangwe in 1882 and Zanzibar in 1883, thus traversing Africa from west to east. Having — with Dr. Pogge — reached the middle Kasai (1881) where it was flowing nearly due north, and aware that .Stanley considered the Kasai to join the Congo through the Ruki, he returned to Congoland in 1884. (via Angola), and between June 1884 and July 1885, with his companions the Muellers, Von Francois, and Dr. L. Wolf, he revealed the main features of the Kasai system — the lengthy Lulua River, the still more important Sankuru, their junction with the Kasai, and the Kasai uniting with the Kwilu-Kwango and the Mfini-Lukenye to form the great Kwa tributary of the Congo — in volume the greatest of the "princes" in the mighty Congo kingdom. Wissmann ranks third in the hierarchy of early Congo explorers, Stanley first, Grenfell second. After the Kasai achievement of 1885 Wissmann returned again early in 1886 and ascended the Kasai and the Lulua (mainly in the Peace), and once more crossed over to the Lomami and Tanganyika. Instead of carrying out his original plan of explor- ing Lake Albert Edward and returning to Zanzibar via the \'ictoria Nyanza, he marched instead from Tanganyika to Nyasa and emerged at Quelimane on the east coast (1887). From 1888 to 1890 he was engaged in subduing the Arab revolt in German East .Africa, of which dominion he was the practical founder. In 1891-3 he conveyed a large steamer in sections to Lake Nyasa, and further strengthened the German hold over Tanganyika by defeating and making peace with the slave-raiding Awemba. He was a man of exceptional merit, with a high reputation among the natives, never sufficiently appreciated in Germany, though one of the few great Colonial administrators Germany has produced. He died in 1905. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 147 school-children, and returned to fetch away the instruments, bedding, clothing, and food stores. By means of ropes and the use of the boats, they hauled the bows of the Peace over the rocks, working in almost mad haste before a coming tornado broke. [This tornado would raise huge waves that might bump the Peace to wreckage.] By the time the storm and the deluge burst over them they had managed to float the steamer on a sandbank. In three days the new plates had been riveted on and the steamer was watertiofht, but, alas! she had been silted up. It was neces- sary to send all the way to the other end of Stanley Pool to invoke the as- sistance of the American Bap- tist Mission, which had a steamer of its own, the Henry Reed} With the as- sistance of the Henry Reed and her men, the steamer was ac- tually dug out of the bank, and after a week's delay from the time of her first striking on the reef was again on her way northwards. After visiting the Equator stations Grenfell returned to the mouth of the Kwa, and there according to promise picked up Wissmann. 56. GERMAN PIONEERS OF CONGO EXPLORATION PHOTOGRAPHED AT STANLEY POOL (Beginning on left — Von Fran(;ois, Wissmann, Wolf, and Hans Miiller.) ' This little steamer figures almost as much in the early history of Congo ex- ploration as does the Peace. She was presented to the Livingstone In/and Mission of Bow London, in 1883, by an Australian sympathiser — Mr. Henry Reed. The Henry Reed was placed on the Upper Congo in 1884, and figures much in Congo history. The missionary captains of the Peace and the Henry Reed were most generous in their assistance to explorers and administrators. 148 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO During a previous journey in 1884, Grenfell and Comber had found their way up the Mfini to Lake Leopold, and also, later, to the River Kwango, but had overlooked the main course of the Kasai.^ On this (the fourth exploring tour of the Peace) Grenfell and Wissmann left Kwamouth on the 22nd of March 1886, and ascended the main Kasai without much diffi- culty. The Bakutu people along its banks had hitherto suc- ceeded in preventing communication between the upper and middle Kasai, but the Peace easily traversed the forty or fifty 57. A GROUP OF BALUBA NATIVES (VON WISSMANN'S EXPEDITION) miles of hostile riverain population, and thenceforward found the Bangodi and Baileo people perfectly friendly and willing to sell food and firewood. The languages spoken in these parts were quite unknown to Grenfell and his crew, and communications could only be carried on through signs. The confluence of the Kasai with the Sankuru was duly noted, and the Sankuru, in spite of its strong current, was ascended for some twelve miles to make certain of its separate identity. The journey up the main Kasai was resumed till the Peace reached the con- fluence of the Kasai and the great River Lulua. ^ These confluences of rivers in the Congo basin are frequently hidden by islands and sandbanks, and the broad streams are like lakes studded with islands. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 149 On the I ith of April they left the main Kasai for the Luebo- Lulua, and this part of the river being in flood, they experienced great difficulty in obtaining firewood, as the bank was either a precipitous cliff or a marsh without trees, and the water was really flowing above the low trees growing along the more normal shore. Here and there they came across elephant camps, places where elephants had stopped to repose and to feed on the scrub. The trunks and branches of trees had been torn down or uprooted by the elephants, and furnished excellent firewood. "What increases our difficulties of wooding" (writes Grenfell in his journal) " is that we are going through an epidemic of measles. Six of our men are down, three others are convalescent. This crisis of measles does not trouble me half so much as the abscess in the palm of Baron von Nimptsch's left hand. Measles we know what to do with and what to expect from, but the exact character of this abscess and how to deal with it are open to questions. A month ago at the Equator Station Baron von N. asked Mr. Eddie to look at his little finger, the tip of which was swollen and painful. ... A fortnight elapsed without any particular indications, and then the palm of the hand began to swell and become inflamed, the pain being intense." The diary is much taken up with the blood-poisoning that followed from this apparently trivial affection of the finger and the surgical operations and experiments of Grenfell which eventually saved this administrator from losing his arm. In the course of this journey in the early spring of 1886 Grenfell had surveyed the Kwa- Kasai to its junction with the Sankuru River, and to the confluence of the Kasai and Lulua, The Lulua he had explored as far as the entrance of the Luebo, had conveyed the great traveller von Wissmann a third of the way across Africa, and had enabled the Administrator of the Congo Free State (von Nimptsch) to visit these remarkable waterways. He had also rendered assistance to the small steamer En Avant belonging to the Congo Free State, which had the German explorers Wolf^ and Schneider on board. He then returned to the Congo and made his way once more to the Equator Station. In his journal at this time there are many entries regarding the Kwa-Kasai, Kwango, and Sankuru which, with other notes, may more fitly be given here. The breadth of the Kwa estuary for this mighty river system of all south-central Congoland is only 700 yards, but ' Dr. Ludwig Wolf was the practical discoverer of the main east and west course of the Sankuru River. ISO GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the depth is very great and the volume of water outpoured into the Congo is an average 321,000 cubic feet per second, at a rate — in flood time — of five to six miles an hour. This greatly exceeds the contribution of the Mubangi-Wele, which near its confluence with the Congo has a volume computed at some 200,000 cubic feet per second. Eleven miles up from its junction with the Congo the Kwa estuary (hitherto rather narrow — "a deeply ci?t chasm in the rocky hills") broadens into a lake-like expansion two to five miles across. As already stated, the common native name for the outlet of the Kasai-Mfini-Kwango is Kwa, at the mouth of this deep canal. Higher up it is Kwau, and Grenfell supposes this last name to be a contraction of Kwango.^ The colour of the Kwa water varies from " bri^jht brick- red " to light cafd au lait "■ — a contrast to the tea-brown clearer water of the Conoo. On the north or riffht bank of the Kwa there is a line of dark indigo-coloured water, often sharply defined from the brick-red of the bulk of the current. This seems to come from Mfini and Lake Leopold. On this side of the river much grass comes down in December.- People on the north and south banks of the Kwa near the junction with the Mfini are generally known as Babuma, but seem to have different tribal names amongst themselves. They were subject to a woman chieftain at Mushie, an important place, now a station of the Congo Free State, and near the junction of the Lukenye- Mfini with the Kwa. Near the junction of the Kwango with the Kasai, Grenfell noticed plenty of game in 1886 — leopards, elephants, hippos., crocodiles, and buffaloes. He gives as alternative names for the Lukenye River "Lukeia," and for the upper Kasai "Lumu" and " Mbe" (mbe = red) ; for the middle Kasai, " Engela." For the Kwango there are the names Bankui, Bombeia, Pfieri, and Nkimi. The Kwango would appear to be called Nkimi (Njali Nkimi) at its junction with the Kasai, and the Juma-Kwilu, the great twin- sister stream, is known at its union with the Kwango as Ngali mbe ( = Red river). The current on the northern Kasai runs at the rate of three miles an hour.^ 1 Kwango should properly be pronounced Kwangu, but the first is the established spelling. 2 In December 1903 Grenfell noticed many grass islands floating down the Kasai. As they were on the dark- water side of the river he supposed they came from Lake Leopold or the Lukenye. 3 On the main Kasai the water rose so high in March 1886 that no rocks were visible. There is constant falling of the clay banks both on the Congo and Kasai. The water undermines the bank, it falls, and thus the channel is constantly varying. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 151 Most of the people about the Kwango-Kasai junction were unmarked on the face, except for the " Saturn " mark on the temples. The women were decorated with cicatrices on the abdomen. Both sexes here wear numbers of brass rings round their necks. One man was seen thus wearing- eight rings each half an inch thick. These brass neck-rings seem to be worn as a medicine. " Some of the men on the banks of the upper Kasai (Basende and Basongo tribes) wear white wigs, and paint their bodies yellow." Grenfell states that the Bambala people extend north to the Kwango confluence. At this junction of the Kasai and Kwango, the houses are round. The Kwango is navigable as far south as the Kingunji rapids from September to April, and is lowest in August.^ [In 1904 the river was at least three feet higher than in 1886 ; and the current was very much stronger than in 1886, but was still three or four feet below the maximum. In mid- January 1904 the water was rising below the Wamba junction with the Kwango, but was falling at the Kingunji Rapids.] The shores of the lower Kwango below its junction with the Kwilu (which river is sometimes called the Juma) are thickly grown with papyrus ; but where the marshy region ends fine oreen-bouohed acacia trees line the banks. In this o o district Grenfell also noticed orange trees. Above the Wamba confluence ["here there are Bamfunu people, also known as Bangulungulu "] the scenery becomes grand and beautiful. Mountains rise in the background high above the river valley, really the broken edges of the tableland from which the Kwanoo descends far to the south. Lower terraces' skirt the watercourse, and the rain has carved these cliffs into pinnacles, saddles, and sharp ridges, or has scooped them out into amphitheatres and battlements, leaving here anci there remarkable cones or domes of sandstone. Some of the cliffs seem to be white with kaolin. The hanging woods are gay with the scarlet-sepalled Mussaenda. The Kingunji rapids ^ The Kwango, as already mentioned earlier in this work, was the first known of the great affluents of the Congo, was in fact known to the Portuguese merchants and missionaries in the sixteenth century. But knowledge of it did not extend farther north than the rapids of Kingunji, perhaps no farther than the latitude of San Salva- dor, near the large settlement of Popokabaka. Major von Mechow, an Austrian explorer of the Congo basin, reached the Kwango a hundred miles south of this point in 1880. He put a boat on the river and descended it as far as the Kingunji rapids, but from this point had to return. It was left to Grenfell and Bentley in the autumn of 1886 to complete von Mechow's studies of the Kwango by surveying the whole remainder of its course from the Kingunji rapids to the junction with the Kasai-Kwa. They were accompanied by a German, Dr. Mense. ^ " In some places 1,000 feet above the river." (Bentley.) 152 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE GONGO (150 miles above the Kasai confluence) are only a fall of about four feet, but the low reef of rock is impassable for a steamer. [The State has now made a canal round the rapids.] The country along- the banks of the Kwango in 1886-7 ^^'S-s rich in game — elephants, buffalo, antelopes, red river-hogs and hippo- potami. In some places on the river bank, huge deposits of fresh-water oyster-shells were found, eight inches thick, seemingly the kitchen-middens of early races. Below Kingunji the (?) Bamfunu people mark their faces in the Bateke fashion, but most of them are not cicatrized. A 58. THE LOWER KWANGO RIVER few exhibit triangular scars on the abdomen. The majority wear European cloth of good quality and trade with the people of the Zombo plateau, who understand the Kongo language. On the Kwango above Kingunji the Bayaka people wear a closely tied cloth as a head-dress, with a tail six to ten inches long hanging down behind like a pigtail. "The women are small and pleasant-looking. There are a few guns, but mostly bows and arrows of the Kasai type. In each bundle of arrows there is one with a big club-shaped end. Most of the other arrows have barbed hard-wood points, the points being attached to the shaft by a well-made splice. The canoes were very primitive." The Kasai, below its junction with the Kwango system, THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 153 widens out into a beautiful lake-like expanse which has been named " Wissmann Pool." Above this confluence (that is, to the east of it) hills begin to appear on the north bank from one to two hundred feet in heicrht. These culminate in Mt. Poo'cre (discovered and named by Wissmann), a dome-like hill with a broad round base, about 400 feet high. Mt. Pogge in this land of relative flatness is a notable landmark for many miles. The country on either side of the lower Kasai between the Juma-Kwilu on the south and the Lukenye on the north is not flat marshland, but gendy undulating, with low, swelling- downs covered with rich grass and occasional clumps of borassus palms. Wissmann notes the absence of papyrus from the middle Kasai. ^ The river flows through a land of red clay (the banks except at flood time are often twenty feet high and very red), and this gives to the Kasai its constant tinge of brick-red. The red clay overlies a stratum of light-coloured sandstone impervious to water and horizontal in position. From this sandstone proceed the rocky spurs or reefs which advance into the river between each sandy bay. Along the banks a fringe of forest remains. "Tall, white-stemmed trees" is a constant note in Grenfell's Kasai surveys, also " bombax trees, raphia and oil palms, calamus, borassus, tall arums (probably Cyrtospermci), baobabs, and occasional pandanus or screw-pine. On land once cleared there are brakes of pineapples. Water-birds were abundant on this broad stream, where the current on the whole is not so swift as in the Kasai tributaries.'^ Grenfell on the broader reaches of the Kasai notes the abund- ance of pelicans, darters, white and other coloured herons, storks, spur-winged geese, ducks, scissor-bill, terns, fishing- vultures, and kites. The width of the Sankuru at its junction with the Kasai was estimated by Grenfell at 450 yards. The current was very strong. [Later, he writes that in July it is almost too strong to be stemmed by a boat with oars or a small steamer.] Between the Sankuru and the Kasai the ground rises to hills of six or seven hundred or even a thousand feet with clefts in 1 S. P. Veiner thus describes the scenery of the lower Kasai : " Vast savannas roll incessantly towards the horizon, covered with high grass and tangled cane brakes. The soil is deep, thick, black muck. Marshes, bogs, and miry fens abound. Deep, slrggish creeks flow lazily towards the river. Water-fowl of every description haunt the banks, and crocodiles and hippopotami are plentiful. Native villages are rare. The land looks wild, the wild landscape lonely." ^ " Very strong current in April." The force of the stream is least and the river is apparently at its lowest in October. 154 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO between. In fact one leaves here the area of the ancient lake basin. The Kasai was for all practical purposes discovered by- Livingstone on February 27th 1854 just at the bend in its ex- treme upper course where, after flowing some hundred and fifty miles eastward from its source in the Chibokwe Mountains, it turns rather abruptly to the north. The Kasai rises almost within a day's walk from the sources of the Kwango and the affluents of the Kwanza River. Livingstone^ writes that it is 59. THE SANKURU RIVER NEAR LUSAMBO Fish traps and fish weirs in the foreground. locally known as the Kasai or Loke. Loke seems to be the commoner name of the two at about 150 miles from its source. He refers to people on its banks (when he crossed it) as the Kasabi. Portuguese geographers style the river at its origin the "Cassabe." If this is the ultimate form of the name, it is interesting. Ka- is only a prefix (in this region an honorific or affectionate prefix), but sabi is a very widespread South Bantu root for river names. The actual name Kasai does not cling ' Livingstone in 1854 also recorded the existence of the Lulua, Lubilash (San- kuru), and Kwilu, besides, of course, the Kwango. He laid down the courses and the junction of all these rivers and their ultimate absorption into the Congo quite correctly (from native information). This information having been published by Livingstone in 1857, it is curious that Stanley should have so long ignored the right theory. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 155 to the great river farther north than about 8° S. Lat. After that its name is Nyele down to the confluence with the Lukia (which at this spot is called the Mile). Then it is called Sankuru or Shankulu, and, lower down, Nzadi, Nshale, Mele, Bulumbu or Kama. Nzadi (or Nshale, Nzari Ngali) simply means big river, and is a word applied also to the Kwango and to the main western Congo, hence the Portuguese name for Congo = Zaire \yide notes on pages 143 and 283]. Short stretches of the middle Kasai are no doubt navigable, but the natives along its course are so determinedly hostile to Europeans that the mighty stream is practically unexplored in detail between the abandoned) Congolese post of Dilolo in Lat. 10° 40' and the Pogge Falls in Lat. 6° 40'. Navigability for steamers from the north ends at the Wissmann Falls in about 5° 20', just above the junction between Kasai and Lulua. At the Wissmann Falls, at the junction of the Luebo and Lulua, and again at Lusambo on the Sankuru, barriers of large, rounded boulders extend entirely across the river, being almost complete barriers to navigation, and at low water almost en- tirely uncovered. They are considered by Mr. Verner^ to mark the ancient shore-line of the vast Congo Lake.' The whole country between the Kasai and Sankuru (accord- ing to Grenfell and Verner) is strewn with boulders varying in size from a football to a large hen-coop : — " They are composed of dark rock of medium hardness, rounded in shape, often striated and scratched . . . possibly sandstone. There are also pebbles from a peanut to a baseball in size, chiefly of quartz, also apparently pieces of limestone. . . . The first soil under the humus is red clay, then a bluish-white clay used for pottery and full of pebbles, and then the sandstone." Verner thus describes the stratification of the cliffs above the Kasai : — " First a layer of red ferruginous clay about seven feet deep ; then a mass of irregular sandstone boulders extending downwards for ten feet ; then a thick layer of bluish-white clay about thirty feet in depth and full of pebbles, and under this a layer of crumbling sandstone." ^ The same writer {^Pioneering in Central Africa) gives this pen picture of the Kasai above the Wissmann P'alls : — " Roaring waters, mighty, dense, tomb-hke forests, dazzling waterfalls, grunting hippopotami, jumping fish, and the red glare of the tropical sun on water, sand and sky." "The path from Luebo to Ndombe followed what was clearly an ancient shore- line, the margin of a primeval inland sea. The prevailing type of the rocks was very hard sandstone, with crystalline irruptive trap, their stratification tilted at an angle of over sixty-five degrees, and there were masses of rugged conglomerate below the mountain fissures. Some of these fissures were of considerable size, and were filled by charming little lakes, often of great depth." 156 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO What Mr. Verner describes as fossil amber (of which masses are occasionally found) is more probably fossil gum copal. Both he and Grenfell praise the beauty of the scenery in the region where the Kasai leaves the edge of the vast, broken Lunda plateau. Verner is especially enthusiastic as to the country between the Kasai and the Luebo on the road between Ndombe and Bindundu : — " The bald, rocky mountains rise for about a thousand feet above the surrounding plains, some of them of jagged limestone. The long, yellow flood of the Kasai — a golden ribbon in a dress of green forests, which extend on either side of the yellow flood to the mountain tops, which are distant about twenty miles on either side. Southwards, the mighty heads of the Wauters Mountains,^ outlined against the sky, range upon range, peak above peak, glad reminders of higher and cooler lands. The roar of rushing waters is everywhere in the air, streamlets springing from hilly fountains or marshy plateaux, their courses being indicated by narrow bands of woodland and long, silvery lines of fog. Little mountain lakes gleam in the radiant sunshine, emeralds set in a crown of golden hills." There is a good deal of h'lsh. land in the enclave between the Sankuru-Lubudi and the Lulua. The forests in this region are limited chiefly to the river valleys. It is only apparently between the Lulua and middle Sankuru and the Lomami that they vie in continuous density with the forests of the Aruwimi basin. " The plains adjoining the forests are lovely and unique. Glades of short, evergreen grass dotted with small woodlands, palm groves, and pineapple thickets here and there. The trees are often stunted, with very large yellow, mock-orange fruit, their bark rendered impervious to fire through the hardening process of bush fires that have gone on for ages ; tangled thickets of thorns and lianas, and loveliest flowers, orchids and ferns are scattered over the whole." (Verner.) On the banks of the Sankuru Grenfell noticed a species ot raphia palm new to him. The natives called it " IMabundu," and the enormous midribs of the mighty fronds were bright orange-yellow. This palm supplies the bast or fibre used for weaving the now celebrated pile cloths of the Kasai peoples and of the Bakuba country. The name "Sankuru" should really be pronounced San- kulu. It may mean " The Great Father " or " Father of Great- ' The Wauters Mountains bordering on the north the upper basin of the Kasai are spurs of hard sandstone and conglomerate. They really border on the north the immense fertile, populous plateau of Lunda. To the north of them the land slopes downwards towards the central basin of the Congo, and is a succession of rolling hills and broad, undulating valleys, rivers and streams everywhere bordered with gigantic forests. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 157 ness." The term is also applied to the Kasai River in the same region. In its extreme upper course the Sankuru is known as Lubilash, a name first recorded by Livingstone in 1854. The natives in some districts look upon the Sankuru as the main stream and the Kasai as a tribu- tary. Neverthe- less, accordinor to Grenfell the Kasai above its confluence with the Sankuru has a volume of some 89,000 cubic feet per second, while the outflow of the Sankuru is only 42,000 cubic feet. • There mioht be a better case argued for the equality in impor- tance of the Lulua with the Kasai. It has nearly as long a course,^ but Gren- fell computes its volume as only 35,000 cubic feet per second against the 54,000 cubic feet of the Kasai. In its lower course the Lulua flows through vast forests of oil palms. " There were large groves of oil palm trees," writes Verner, " with tangled thickets growing so closely as almost to choke up the path. The boys said that these groves were the sites of former villages, now removed to other places. This custom of moving their towns I found to be a well-established rule. The natives said that after a while the 60. KASAI CLOTH OF RAISED PILE Made from raphia "bast " or fibre (the substance of the leaflets of the young fronds). 1 The Lulua rises in the extreme south of Congoland, within a short distance ot the source of the head stream of the main Zambezi, just as the Kasai takes its origin close to the beginnings of the western upper Zambezi (Lungwebungo). 158 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO ground of their towns became bad. The evil spirits seek to overwhelm them, and they must build on new and holy ground. F"rom hygienic and sanitary conditions one would certainl}' approve of this unique African custom. When a town is deserted the land becomes grown over from the seeds left about the houses, and their productive power is remarkable. The palms in these groves produce wine, oil, cabbage, and bamboo, besides palm fibre for making cloth and the leaves for covering houses. The pineapples afforded us a generous feast, and but for the lack of water would have sufficed for our lunch on the waj'." (Verner.) Wissmann, Ludwig Wolf, Grenfell, Verner, all refer in their writings to the astonishing abundance of the pineapple in South Central Congoland. In its way this fact is nearly as remarkable as the spread of the tobacco plant. Both are of American origin, and both have only had about 330 years in which to spread nearly all over tropical Africa. The manioc, papaw, and red pepper are other instances of American plants that have penetrated rapidly to the innermost recesses of the Dark Continent. There is a great spur of mountain country (the Samba Mountains), rising in places to perhaps 4,000 feet, which bifur- cates with the Zambezi-Cono;o rano-e near Mount Kamea, and divides the basin of the Lualaba from that of the Lulua and Sankuru. This strongly marked earth-wrinkle divides into two main spurs under the 9th degree of S. Lat., and acts as the fountain-head of the Lomami, separating its basin from that of the Lualaba and of the Sankuru- Luembe. The Samba mountains contain regions of remarkable natural beautv, diver- sifted as they are with many mountain lakes and tarns (the largest of which is Lake Lubangole), with noble forests, naked granite rocks, fruitful plantations, and innumerable streams. As they advance, their spurs towards the north on either side of the Lomami crumble into hills and are softened into rollino- downs, macrnificentlv forested. The Batetela-Bankusu country which lies athwart the middle course of the Lomami is exceedingly rich and fertile, a level prairie land with a deep black soil. Here remain some patches of primeval woodland, though the land has been much more disforested by man than is the case with the middle and upper Sankuru basin. The peoples of South-Central Congoland may be conve- niently enumerated here. The Balolo in the centre (also known as Ndolo, Mongo, Bankundu), Ngombc on the north and north-west (near the main Congo), the Bayanzi on the west, together with the Babiima people along the lower Kasai, THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 159 account for most of the main groups of Bantu (Pygmies excepted) between the region bounded by the Lomami River, the Lopori-Lulongo, the lakes Ntomba and Leopold II, and the River Lukenye. The Balolo peoples (as classified by language) ex- tend a short distance east- wards of the Lomami till they come in contact with the lower Lomami tribes belorig- inor to the Soko and Kele groups or the non - Bantu Bamangra. Where the ground rises above the old level of the Conoro Lake and the Lomami is flowing through a hilly country south of Lat. 2° 30' S. one encounters a people like the Benakainba and Ba-viunbtt of purer Bantu speech, connected linguisti- cally with the tribes east of the Equatorial Lualaba or those of the great Luba group. The Basongo or Basongo- meno^ and the Bashilange [Bankuiii] are the principal tribal designations of the Bantu-speaking peoples be- tween the Lukenye on the north and the Kasai-Sankuru on the south. The Batetela between Lomami and Sankuru (like the Bakusu or Bankimi farther east) seem to be con- nected in origin and language with the Manyema : perhaps also with the recently formed, mongrel, warlike tribe known as the " Zappo-zaps " \Basonge). Between the Wamba River on the west and the Kasai on the north and east there is a bewildering medley of peoples. 61. A TYPICAL MUYANZI (A SAWYER OF THE MISSION AT BOLOBO) The Bayanzi or Babangi range from the lower Kasai to the main Congo and the Mubangi confluence. ' This term means " they sharpen " or " they sharpen teeth." A somewhat similar people known as Basongc seems to be found between Sankuru and Lomami, south of the Batetela. i6o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO described of late in the writintr.s of Mr. Eniil Tordav.' Their tribal names and approximate localities are sufficiently illus- trated in the ethnographical map which accompanies this book. Varying very much in physical development (though belonging mostly to the Forest negro type), they are mostly associated with the speaking of corrupt, worn-down Bantu dialects about equally related to the Luba, Kongo, Teke, and Yanzi groups. Besides the already mentioned Bayaka and Bayanzi and their kindred, these include such important tribes as the Bahiiana and Bambala, the Babunda, Bapindi (or Bapeinde), Badinga^- Basainba, Bakivese, Basongo (akin to those, no doubt, who dwell between the Kasai and the Lukenye) and Bangongo. F"arther south are the Bahta, who are evidently a northern section of the A-hinda people (rather than a western branch of the Baluba). Then before the real Lunda territories are reached (within Portuguese political limits) comes an unin- habited tract ranged over by the Ba-kioko raiders. Between the Luanje River and the Kasai are the Bashilcle and the Tjtkoiigo, fierce peoples very hostile at present to the white man. The Bashilek (or Bena Lindi) arc related to the Bashilavge^ and they again to the Basonoo and the great, far-spreading Luba group. As to the language affinities of the Tiikongo'' or Ba-/,ongo little or nothing is known. The Bapindi (-mpende, -peindi)^ ' Published in Afan and the Jotirval of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. - "The (Radinga) people along the (lower) Kasai are inclined to be turbulent and drunken. Abundance of palm wine makes them so. They are very little cicatrized, but wear the " Saturn " mark (dot within a ring) on the temples. Nakedness here is less the fashion than in the Babuma country. The chiefs especially wear ample skirts of cloth and prettily worked caps." (Grenfell.) ^ " The Bashilange maintain constant relations with the Kioko, those warlike and intelligent blacks whose original home was in the mountains of the upper Kwango. The Kioko are bold and cunning traders who would hold their own as merchants with the Arabs themselves. The half-breeds of Angola also frequently visit the Bashilange, and particularly the Kioko. Hence it comes that one often finds among these tribes crucifixes, crosses, and chaplets. A great number of fetishes bear crosses, and these are among the most venerated. "Through the Kioko these last have learnt to cultivate india-rubber, which they extract from creepers and lianas by means of triangular incisions. The Kioko have in a way the monopoly of trading among these tribes ; all their ivory and india- rubber have been hitherto transported to Malanje (Portuguese territory)." (Torday.) ^ Tu- is a plural prefix (usually diminutive or affectionate in sense) which answers to the singular prefix Ka-. The root of this name, therefore, is " Kongo," which means both " spear " and " hunter." There is nothing for or against the Tu- or Ba-kongo of the Kasai being the far-back progenitors of the Bakongo of western Congo. The Tukongo of the Kasai are said to speak a dialect of Luba, but this language is not inherently dissimilar to the Kongo tongue of the west. ^ "The Bampende are tatued in a strange way. They are people of unusual good looks — quite a handsome lot of men. Among these and other tribes in the southern basin of the Congo, Kasongo appears to mean smith, blacksmith." (Verner.) THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND i6i inhabit the lands on either side of the middle Kasai (in an interrupted range) and extend as far east as the Lulua. According to Torday, the more aboriginal tribes of this Kwango-Kwilu-Kasai region are the black-skinned lumpish Babunda^ the Bayaka, Basamba, Basongo, and IVa- or Ba- ngongo. The Bak- wese (who seem to have migrated from the south-east, leav- ing colonies behind in the basin of the upper Lualaba) are related to the Iin- bangala of the mid- dle Kwango, the Imbangala being- obviously the "Jag- gas " of Angolan history. Nearly all these tribes are still canni- bals, except the western Bayaka, most of the Bak- wese, and the Balua. In all this vast area between the Kwan- go and the Kasai — or at any rate the Luanje — there are seemingly no Pyg- my people linger- ing. These, under the name of Batwa, only make their appearance on the east bank of the middle Kasai. Grenfell discovered many traces of Pygmy peoples in Central Congoland and up the Lomami. No doubt they continue their range uninterruptedly southwards to the Sankuru. Between Kasai, Sankuru, and Lomami they have been reported by many travellers, but 1 -bufuia, -bondo, -butufu, -biino, -poiida is a varying root right across Southern Congoland and much else of South-West Bantu .'\frica, and is often associated with serfs or helot tribes. 62. (Ij NATIVE l ETIbH KKUM THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE CATARACT CONGO The strings tied round the neck are offerings for benefits received. (2) IMAGE OF ST. CHRISTOPHER AND THE INFANT CHRIST, FOUND IN THE SAN SALVADOR DIS- TRICT (Possibly some two or three hundred years old. Has been used as a fetish). .Similar types to (i) and (?) are found among the Kioko and Bashilange. I. -M i62 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO their southward range does not seem to extend beyond 6° S. Lat. or 6° 30'. They dwell in numbers, peaceably and happily, where the Bakuba rule. The Bakuba are a most remarkable race, an unsolved mystery as yet. The Bantu language of the southern Bakuba (only so far illustrated by a few words collected by Henrique de Carvalho and von Wissmann) is shared by the Bakete (a helot tribe of ordi- nary negro type) and by the Batwa Pyg- mies who dwell amongst the Ba- kuba, and this dia- lect is very peculiar and quite distinct from the Luba species. But it is corrupt and not of an archaic type. The Bakuba speech between the Lubudi and the Sankuru is allied to the Balolo tongue and the Manyema group. Physically the Ba- kuba aristocracy suggests affinity with the Balimia of W est- 63. BAKUBA AXES OF WROUGHT IRON, FROM THE sm Uganda and KASAi-sANKURu consequcntly with These are carried before a chief as a sign of authority (Grenfell). The . 1 IT • . • Bakuba and Baluba are great ironworkers. tUC IiamitlC ne" groids of the Eastern Sudan. The present habitat of the Bakuba is the region between the Sankuru, Lubudi, and Lulua ; though isolated chieftainships exist east of the Lubudi and between the Lulua and the Kasai (Ndombe), and Grenfell states that they have pushed westwards along the main Kasai into Yanzi territory. The Bakete were apparently the original Bantu race of the Sankuru-Lulua almost-island, extending, however, some of their settlements south of the Lulua. They are a dirty, somewhat retrograde people who have seemingly degenerated from a state of higher civilization, partly owing to the degree to which they have been enslaved by the Bakuba and Baluba THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 163 chieftains. Besides the Bakete, there would seem to be alonor the south bank of the lower Sankuru and on the north bank of the Kasai, above the Sankuru confluence, a rather Pygmy-like tribe called Bateke {vide p. 77). East of the middle Kasai, south of the lower Lulua and of the Lubefu, west of the Lomami (though extending their influence and linguistic connections far beyond these limits), is the domain of the remarkable Luba peoples, who were no doubt fundamentally connected in history with the Lua (Rua) and Lunda tribes (and even the Bakuba caste). The range of the Luba language under many desig- nations and in many dialects extends from the Lukenye River on the north to about 1 1° 30' S. Lat. on the south, and from the Loanje River and the Kasai on the west to the Lualaba- Lufira on the east. The Baluba may have been originally akin to the Bakuba — a caste of Hamitico-neo-roid hunter-adventurers who invaded the central basin of the Conoo from the east or north-east. They seem to have founded the empire of Lunda, the commercial (Imbangala) colonies of the Kwango River, to have moulded the warrior tribe of the Ba-kioko, and to have created powerful monarchies here and there between the Kasai, Sankuru, and Lake Mweru. In the valley of the Lulua River they are usually known as the Bcua Luhia ; in the east they are Barua; elsewhere, Turuba, Bikenge, " Moiyo,"^ Biomba, Bakwalulua, Bakwambuya, etc. There are, however, other tribes in Lubaland with sufficient individuality of manners or dialect to be separately classified, though in reality they may prove (linguistically) part of the Luba confederation. These are, for example, the Kanyoka (Kanyika, Kanyuka), between the Lulua and the middle Sankuru. [These people have the distinction of being first mentioned (in connection with the Lualaba) and their language inscribed by the missionary Sigismund Koelle in 1851."] There are the Bambwe and the Kalebwe on either side of b^. A SPECIMEN OF LUBA PO'lTERY A water-cooler from Lulualjourg (Lulua River). ' From the current greeting " Moiyo," signifying " Life." ^ From a Kanyoka (Kanyika) slave who was released by the British cruisers and landed at Sierra Leone. i64 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the mid-Sankuru, and the Ba-samba (already mentioned) far to the south. The Kalunda of the upper Sankuru are prob- ably related to the Lunda people, and the Babondo of the Luembe River to the Babunda of the Kwilu basin. The Peace (still on her fourth voyage) after depositing . Wissmann on the Lulua-Luebo junction returned to Kwamouth on the main Congo, and then steamed up- river to the Equator station and on to Stan- ley Falls.^ At this time interest had begun to revive in Muta Nzioe or the Beatrice Gulf of Stan- ley's expedition of 1875-7. In 1875 Stan- ley had discovered Mount Ruwenzori (in an imperfect way), calling it Mount Ed- win Arnold and guess- ing its heioht at fifteen thousand feet. Near the base of this mighty mountain mass, the summits of which were persistently concealed by cloud, was on the east the shallow oulf now called Lake Dweru. This was con- nected by a narrow, winding channel with the Katwe Bay of Lake Albert Edward. Stanley had believed that he had here touched a great lake with several arms or gulfs. The natives oave it the name of Muta Nzio-e, which like the Luta Nzige of Lake Albert means "the 65. CLOTH OF RAIDED PILE FROM THE BAKUBA COUNTRY (SAXKURU RIVER) ' Grenfell repeatedly notices the remarkable change of the flora where the low, swampy basin of the main Congo suddenly gives place to a rocky formation in the vicinity of the Stanley Falls. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 165 killer of locusts," because the locust flights so often fell from weariness into the waters and were drowned. Until, in 1890, Stanley himself had revealed to the world the shrunken limits of the rechristened Lake Albert Edward, Muta Nzige with its mysterious affinities — ? Congo ?Nile ? Tanganyika — was the goal of many an ambitious young explorer. Grenfell greatly longed for the means and an opportunity to go thither. Wiss- mann, whom he had just set down on the Lulua, intended to make for Muta Nzige ; and Dr. Lenz, the Austrian explorer (whose only really great journey was one made from Morocco to Timbuktu in 1880) was already starting from the Stanley Falls in that direction under an escort of Arabs. ^ In his diary at this time Grenfell has much to say on the statecraft of Tipu-Tipu, who had been installed as representa- tive of the Congo Free State by Stanley himself. Tipu-Tipu's lieutenants sometimes got out of hand, but it is doubtful whether but for the Arab rising against the Germans on the east and the growing ambition of the Belgians on the west Stanley's original idea of an Arab state in the eastern half of the Congo basin under Belgian protection was a bad expedient. Of course it served the purpose later of the Germans and Belgians and even of the British to paint the conduct of the Maskat and Zanzibar Arabs in the worst light, because they were undoubtedly a very serious rival in the African field, serious inasmuch as after the preliminary slave-raiding and ravaging they were less exacting in their demands on the natives. They introduced a stage of civilization that appealed peculiarly to the negro instincts, and devoted themselves with singular assiduity to agriculture of a very practical kind. Nor were the arts unrepresented. Grenfell and others allude to the beautiful interior decorations of the Arab mosques in towns on the Upper Congo, and they as well as the present writer have noted the artistic carving of the door-frames and the doors of the dwelling-houses. The State at this time was represented officially by Mr. Deane, an Englishman, who was a relative of Sir Francis de Winton (then Governor of the Congo Free State). Deane was subsequently killed — years afterwards — by a buffalo. At intervals in his diary Grenfell writes strongly in his praise, as being one of the bravest men he has ever known, and a very ' Lenz soon turned back, and made a somewhat humdrum journey instead across Africa down the already known course of the Congo. Wissmann also failed at Nyangwe and Ujiji to organize his journey to Muta Nzige and returned liome via Nyasaland. i66 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO worthy representative of European civilization. In 1886 he had to keep up the authority of the Congo Free State amongst the turbulent Arab slave-traders in a small stockade, with only about seventy soldiers — half Hausa and half Bangala, with two Krupp guns. On this journey to the Falls Grenfell noted with pleasure 60. CONGO J'lONEEKS Beginning on left, lower rank — Dr. A. Sims, Grenfell, Captain Deane ; right hand, upper rank — Michael Richards, A. Billington, J. G. Brown. that the first work of the infant Con^o State amonorst the Aruwimi (Basoko) people — those who had been so hostile both to Stanley in 1877 and to Grenfell himself in 1884 — had been most advantageous. These people were now perfectly friendly, and prepared supplies of food and firewood against the arrival of steamers. Much surveying work was done by Grenfell on this 1886 journey to the end of eastern navigation on the Upper Congo. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 167 On his return to Stanley Pool in the summer of 1886, Grenfell conferred with Captain Bove at Brazzaville, an Italian officer charged with the inquiry as to a suitable field for Italian emigration. Belgian prospects at this time were not very flourishing". Sir Francis de Winton had left the Congo never to return. The Acting Governor lived at Boma, and had but little influence over the rest of his colleaoues, who indulg-ed in silly quarrels and fought duels. On the 30th of September Grenfell started away again up-river on the fifth voyage of the Peace, taking with him a number of Baptist missionaries to be placed at new stations, and also giving passages to officials of the Congo State. It was intended on this occasion to explore Lake Leopold II. The steamer passed without incident up the Kwa and the Mfini or Lufini. As to the Mfini River, he writes in October 1886 : — " I am greatly impressed by the value of this river.^ Its current runs about 75 to 100 feet a minute. It passes by gently rolling downs of very friable soil, with plenty of people (wealthy, as they wear lots of brass collars). The long, low foreshore is a disadvantage here and there, but the high land comes down at certain places to the water's edge. No other equal length of waterway that I know has so many people. Not a single unfriendly demonstration as yet. The villages are often perched on huge anthills. The people do not cicatrize their faces, but tattoo on the temples the circular mark within a ring (the 'Saturn' mark). The women are slightly marked on abdomen. No one wears European cloth here. Their great industry (besides making pottery of graceful shapes) is reed-burning for the extraction of salt. We were greatly puzzled at first as to the object of the huge stacks of dry reeds like large grass dwellings seen from a distance. Lot of crocodiles, also pelicans, herons, sacred ibis, crowned cranes, and the like. Plenty of hippos and but few mosquitoes. I have not seen the millet bread Stanley speaks of : perhaps the wrong season. About three days' journey up the Mfini we met a ' Kiyanzi '-speaking people with good tobacco for sale. They had cicatrized their faces, and wore graduated rings round the neck. Here the houses are built in streets at right angles to the riverside." "October 15 '86. We reached the head of Lake Leopold, and had quite a hostile reception at the hands of the people, who assembled to the number of some five hundred on the beach. Twenty or thirty waded out into the water up to their waists, threatening us with spears and bows and arrows. They were encouraged meantime by the war dances of their comrades on shore. We stayed some ten minutes, and then put the steamer round and steamed off without having come within bowshot. The steam whistle produced quite a panic, and drove ' In a later passage he says : '" The highlands of the Mfini are splendidly promising. They seem to me to be among the finest positions I have seen in the w hole central Congo basin." i68 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the warriors all on shore. The next town we came to was friendly, as indeed were all the people except in the first case. We were able to purchase supplies and replenish our stores of fuel with the abundance of dried wood which we found in their plantations. The fishing operations which are carried on involve an immense amount of labour. The upper bight of the lake is for some square miles just a forest of fish- ing stakes, through which we had had great difficulty in making our way. The water is very low in many places. We had only three or four feet for miles at a stretch. The marks on the trees indicate the flood- level at about eight feet above the present. " The upper end of Lake Leopold is bounded by much lower shores than the south end, where the wooded hills run from fifty to two hundred feet, meeting the water's edge here and there with bold descents. The soil on top of the ferruginous rock seems to be very- rich black loam. The points that stretch out into the water are very acute, with immense de- tached boulders, and long sandy beaches between these rocky points. The coast is curiously scal- loped. I do not think there is any direct communica- tion between this 67. THE "upside-down FISH " Euiropiits laticeps, from Lake Leopold H, where it sometimes grows to a length of six feet. It is very good to eat. lake and Lake Ntomba.^ The people on the Mfini River have plenty of brass (rods), while the lake people have little or none. The strangest thing about these folk is their speaking ' Kiyanzi ' or a dialect somewhat similar. Many of the words I recognized as absolutely the same. They use on the open waters of the lake large 'sea-going' canoes on account of the rough seas. "The water of Lake Leopold II is very dirty, and strongly im- pregnated with iron. Those wlio bathe in it have to carefully wash afterwards to get rid of the rust. " I make the latitude fully ten miles south of Stanley's position by two double observations. Can Stanley have missed a day in his reckoning? I make the lake quite as big as he does. . . ." On the 16th of October 1886 the Peace started at six in the mornino-, but was unable to tow her boat alono-side on account of the heavy rollers on the open water of the lake, and the whale-boat therefore had to be towed astern with a long rope. The waves broke over the Peace and threatened to swamp her. This was afterwards proved by Bentley's journey round Ntomba in 1887. THE RIVERS OF CENTRAL CONGOLAND 169 Although there were so many water-birds on the Mfini, very few were to be seen on Lake Leopold. Crocodiles also were less numerous. On the other hand, a good many buffaloes came down to drink where the shore was low, and hippos were abundant on these rare grassy flats. The attacks of the hippopotami on this voyage were most audacious. They rushed at the Peace again and again, rose out of the water and seized the bows in their huore mouths, wrenching off some of the planking round the gunwale. Grenfell was repeatedly wet through with the splashing made by these monsters. Those that were killed furnished meat for the natives on board. As on the Mfini River, so on the shores of Lake Leopold II, where the land was low and grassy the natives reared stacks of cut ofrass or reeds for burn- ing in order to make salt from the potash. Grenfell pre- dicts that the navi- o-ation of the lake will be rendered dangerous in the 68. head of hu'popotamus shot isy (jkenkeli, seasons of high water by several reefs of rocks. As there is no visible current, the presence of these will be concealed when they are covered with water. After leaving Lake Leopold some attention was given to the important River Lukenye. Where the Lukenye joins the Mfini and the waters of Lake Leopold it is 250 yards wide, and its current flows at the rate of 172 feet a minute. The Lukenye rises far away to the east, only a few miles from the course of the Lomami. It flows nearly parallel with the lower course of the Sankuru-Kasai, and the country lying between it and this other great tributary of the Congo is said to be some of the finest land in the Conoo Free State. By the 21st of October 1886 Grenfell was back again at Arthington, and for some days afterwards had to nurse missionary colleagues whose fevers gave them temperatures of 105°. In December of that year he went on the sixth exploring lyo GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO voyage of the Peace with Holman Bentley as a companion. They explored the Kvvango Ri\'er from the Kasai confluence to the Kingunji Rapids with results that are embodied in the earlier part of this chapter. Except for this excursion the close of 1886 was spent in working out his observations and completing his great chart of the river from Leopoldville on Stanley Pool to the Stanley F"alls, together with his explorations of the upper affluents. His chart was made on the scale of of an inch= 100 yards (practically a mile to the inch), and the sheets of the chart dealing with the main Congo when placed in order one after the other measured a length of 125 feet.^ Much of Grenfell's preliminary geographical work had been published by the Royal Geographical Society in October 1886, accompanied by his notes. In 1887 they published his chart of the Congo basin, and very appropriately awarded to him in that year the Founder's Medal. ' Holinan Bentley thus describes Grenfell's procedure when sur\'eying from the deck of the Peace : " Hour after hour on those long journeys Grenfell stood behind his prismatic compass, taking the bearings of point after point as they appeared ; estimating from time to time the speed of the steamer, and correcting all the work as occasion offered by astronomical observations. When the steamer was running his food had to be brought to him, unless in some straighter run towards a distant point he could slip away for a few minutes." Grenfell's diaries constantly refer to his night vigils for taking observations of the stars from the satellites of Jupiter. CHAPTER X TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY GRENFELL'S fourth term of residence on the Congo had lasted exactly four years, from 1883 to 1887. 1883 had been spent in founding mission stations and in conveying the Peace in sections to Stanley Pool and putting her together. 1884, 1885, and 1886 had been occupied mainly in the great explorations, but also in founding mission stations of a temporary or permanent nature at the Babangi towns of the Upper Congo. In February 1887 Grenfell reached England for a brief holiday, regaining the Congo in September. Whilst he was resting- from his labours in the first hall of that year, Stanley arrived on the Lower Congo 10 conduct the Emin Pasha relief expedition. In order to reach the mouth of the Aruwimi as quickly as possible, he decided in a somewhat masterful way to impress every steamer on the Upper Congo, amongst them the Peace. Stanley did not at first realize that the Peace was necessary, for the maintenance of the mission stations already established far away from Stanley Pool. However, his somewhat peremptory language soon gave way to a milder attitude. He promised not to detain the steamer longer than absolutely necessary, and engaged that she should not be associated with warlike opera- tions which he might find it necessary to undertake.^ Amongst other things Stanley attempted to solve for a time the Arab difficulty by establishing Tipu-Tipu as Governor for the Congo Independent State at the Stanley Falls, as related in the last chapter. Deane, the Englishman referred to so often by Grenfell in his diaries, had been attacked by the Arabs, and after a desperate but vain defence of his stockade had sought safety in flight. He had managed to get away in a canoe after runnino- the trauntlet of the Arab fire from the banks. The borrowing of the Peace on the part of Stanley put a 1 "Stanley kept his promise and there was nothing whatever to prejudice the Peace's character."' (Bentley.) 171 172 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO stop for some time to further Congo exploration by the Baptist missionaries, though Bentley did useful geographical work over- land to the east and south of Stanley Pool. Grenfell had noted previously the following information as to the angle of country between the lower Kwango and the Congo, especially the lands lying due east of Stanley Pool ; his information being partly derived from a German explorer Dr. Biittner, who travelled over this region in 1885. Bentley and 69. MAJOR I5ARTTEL0T AND A SECTION OF THE EMIN PASHA RELIEF EXPEDITION OFF LUKOLELA, UPPER CONGO Biittner described it as a high level tableland (1,000 to 1,500 feet above sea-level), seamed with small valleys not too well supplied with water.^ Each watering-place had a village grouped round it, and as a rule these villages and supplies of water were about twenty miles apart. Further south, in the valley of the Kwango, the country of the Yaka (Mayaka, Bayaka) possessed large and prosperous towns which were centres for the ivory trade. The natives told Biittner strange 1 Biittner stated that between San Salvador and the Kwango the land was bare on the uplands : " characteristic red clay hills and gallery forests along the river banks." Bentley describes the valley of the Ntsele (which enters Stanley Pool at Kimpoko) as "about five miles wide and i,ioo feet deep," tributary streams flowing through other gorges much narrower but nearly as profound, with the cliff-sides clothed in black forest save where recent landslips displayed bare surfaces of gleaming white sand. TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY 173 stories of a race of men in the hills to the west who spoke from their arm-pits. A great deal of cannibalism was saicl to linger (in 1885) amongst the Bayaka. In fact, Dr. Biittner saw two slaves killed for eating, and marvelled at their apparent in- sensibility. They were not even bound, but submitted to execution like dumb, senseless brutes. In the summer of 1887, Holman Bentley accompanied by his wife and child, with the missionary engineer Char- ters^ in command of the Peace, made a steamer jour- ney on the Upper Congo for the purpose of exploring Lake Mantumba or Ntomba. It was believed then that this small lake, entered from the ConCTo at Ilebo, comnmni- cated by creek with Lake Leopold II. If this were the case it might be an easier means of access to the in- terior for the mission steamer.^ On the way to Ntomba they called at the row of Babangi towns on the east bank of the Congo known as Bolobo. The Bolobo district in 1 887 had become excessively hostile towards Europeans. The temporary station of the Congo Free State had been burnt to the ground, the chief Ibaka was dead, and when the Peace arrived in August, with Bentley on board, she was roughly ordered away. Before sheering off, however, an idea occurred to Bendey. Taking- advantage of the steamer's halt, his wife and nurse were giving ' Charters afterwards became a doctor, and as a medical missionary went out to British East Africa, where he lost his life inexplicably {vide Bentley's Pioneering on the Congo). The present writer believes that he and his companion fell into a game pit and were smothered ; that was the story told to him by natives, a few years after Charters's death. 2 Bentley and all succeeding travellers down to a few years ago exaggerated the size and importance of this little lake— a mere Congo backwater. Stanley, its dis- coverer, called it "Mantumba." The Belgian authorities write the name "Tumba." Bentley's " Ntomba" seems to be the usual native pronunciation. 70. REV. W. HOLMAN liENTLEY, B.M.S.. Author of Kongo Dictionary and Grammar. D.D. 174 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO a bath to the Bentley baby. As if by accident, the little white child was held up in view of the angry and excited people. Suddenly a hush fell on the assembly of armed men, gradually giving way to a shout of delighted surprise. A few minutes afterwards, in response to urgent invitations to come on shore, the Bentley baby in a dainty white dress was being paraded through the town, nursed and dandled by warrior after warrior till his snowy frock was reddened with camwood dye or stained with greasy black marks from those who had covered their bodies with oil and soot in token of mourning. Mrs. Bentley w^as equally an object of interest and admiration, as she was the first white woman that had appeared in these regions. Up to that time the white man had been looked upon as a sort of unnatural creature that was not bred and born like ordinary human beings — a semi-supernatural being without a mate. The Bentley baby practically created the Baptist mission station of Bolobo, which has endured for so many years, and which was to be Grenfell's principal resi- dence from 1888 till 1906. After stopping at llebo [which in those days was a group of eight or ten towns of Babangi people, separated each from the other by tall fences of glossy-leaved dracaenas] the mission party steamed into Lake Ntomba. The missionaries were again objects of distrust. They were non-human, spirits — and spirits of evil. Already, by 1887, the white man was becoming un- popular on the Upper Congo. In some districts he was a minister of justice, punishing the evil-doer. He was disliked as a Liberal, as one who was breaking up the bad old customs. Elsewhere the white agent or explorer was unscrupulous and harsh, and his Swahili or Hausa soldiers abused their positions and laid violent hands on women or food supplies. At lyanja Bentley was asked, "Why do you spirits always trouble us? You are not good. Our people die, so do our goats and fowls ; our farms do not produce as they should, sickness and trouble come, and you are the cause. . . . Why do you not let us alone ? " ^ 1 This last phrase was used, even as early as 1883, to the author of this book when visiting similar regions on the Upper Congo. " Let us alone : our customs may be bad in your eyes, but let us alone. Stop in your country as we stop in ours." They had not grasped one underlying principle of the martyrdom of man, that our much-suffering genus never has been let alone since it diverged from the anthropoid ape. It has been chastened by glacial periods — or, at any rate, this has been the agency that has shaped the industrious Asiatic [or European. The Negro and the Australian may have escaped the trials of an Ice Age, only now to be plagued instead by their Caucasian or Mongolian brothers, who will not, cannot let them alone. TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY 175 Bentley again pointed out that according to their own show- ing spirits could not marry and have children, and proved his flesh-and-blood kinship with them by the production of his wife and child. It was, however, by no means conclusive to the natives that a spirit might not mingle with humanity and pro- create. Still, to a ofreat extent their confidence was won. He describes the people of Lake Ntomba as very different from the Ba- banoi of the Congo shore. ^ Their type of face resembled the Babuma of the south end of Lake Leopold ; but curiously enough, they wore cloth identical with that made in the Kasai region, the " pile cloth " like buff-colour- ed velvet, which is made of the fibre of the raphia palm. They were armed with bows, arrows, and spears, but had very few shields. One feature of the eastern shore of a remarkable character was the extraordinary abundance of gum copal. This resin flows from a papilionaceous tree, a species of Copaifera, Trachy- lobium or Guibourtia. It is very light, and floats readily in water. The copal gum which drops from the trees round Lake 71. CLOTH OF RAISED PILE FROM NTOMBA DISTRICT ' Lord Mountmorres, visiting the eastern shores of Ntomba in 1905, noticed the pygmy hunters who penetrated thither from the east, and who were known as Biia by the other tribes. 176 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Ntomba at flood time is blown by the prevailing wind to the east shore of the lake. Here (according to Bentley) the beach and ground are composed entirely of copal, leaves, and drift- wood. " The sand and pebbles are all of copal. I saw nothing else, even in the hollows." The water of Lake Ntomba, like that of Leopold II, is very dark rusty-red in colour. Its shores are all iron-stone, with rocky points, scooped-out shallow bays, and a few small islands. The lake seems to be shallow- as a general rule, and the shores are flat. One of Bentley 's objects was to ascertain if there was water communication between Mantumba and Lake Leopold II. He followed up for a few miles several creeks leading towards the River Busira, but arrived at the conclusion that except in high flood time it would be impossible to pass from Ntomba either to the great lake in the south or to the Ruki- Busira. As the water of Ntomba rises about ten feet in the height of the rainy season, it may occur that at that time of the year the two lakes nearly merge. Grenfell states at a later date that the Ntomba water flows westward into the main Congo. By the autumn of 1887 Grenfell returned from his holiday in England and had reached the new Arthinq-ton station at Stanley Pool in January 1888. A great disaster had happened to this station (then the Grenfells' home) in the summer of 1886. Whilst the Peace was up-river, Bateke people, burning the grass in the dry season, had accidentally started a bush fire near Leopoldville which destroyed all Arthington station except two dwelling-houses, entailing the loss not only of the mission property, but of the private effects of Grenfell and five of his colleaoues — the whole loss beino" estimated at ^3,000. Already Arthington had been found to be incon- veniently situated for navigation, as it was so close to the first rapids of the Lower Congo. Measures had been taken a year or so before to obtain new quarters at Nshasa, on the south shore of Stanley Pool ; and after the fire, " old " Arthington was abandoned and the name transferred to the mission settle- ment at Nshasa. Soon after Grenfell's return to the Conoo in the autumn of o 1887 it was decided that the headquarters of the Peace and the river transport service in general of the Baptist Mission on the Upper Congo should be transferred from Arthington on Stanley Pool to Bolobo, beyond the confluence of the Kwa. All through the years that followed the settlement of Euro- peans at Stanley Pool in 1882 immense difficulties had to be TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY 177 encountered in the way of food supply. The population on the southern shores of Stanley Pool was not a very abundant one, and the Europeans soon ate up all the available fowls, pigs, goats, and sheep. Very often they had to live on "kwanga," a sour, unappetizing dough made of the manioc root. Kwanga was very often only eatable by having it toasted or fried till it was quite burnt, in order to get rid of the gluey, sour taste. Fish could sometimes be obtained from the native fishermen. 72. PREPARED MANIOC ROOTS ("KWANGA") AND SUGAR-CANE (A school feast on the Upper Congo.) but as often as not it was smoked fish. This might have been kept for a long time in a native hut, and be full of maggots. There was very little game ; altogether, the region of Stanley Pool, and especially the vicinity of Leopoldville, was not a happy place of residence in the 'eighties.^ Two hundred and thirty miles of difficult and wearisome travel connected it with the base on the lower river, which could be reached by ocean steamers. ' The Bateke people who inhabited tlie country round the south-western shores of Stanley Pool (chiefly at two great congeries of villages, Ntanio or Kintamo and Nshasa or Kinshasa) were never well disposed towards the European. The well- known chief of Ntamo (Leopoldville) was Ngalienia, the capricious friend of Stanley. This individual, like Ibaka and other riverain Congo chiefs, began life as a slave to a Bateke chief, bought for one plate ! He was astute in commerce and so enriched himself over the ivory trade. With his wealth he bought guns and gunpowder from the Bakongo traders and became an independent chief, at first much courted and I. — N 178 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Supplies brought over these two hundred and thirty miles by boat or steamer and by porters were expensive ; moreover, the recruitment of native porters was a matter of uncertainty, and goods would be stranded for weeks or months at Manyanga, midway in the cataract region. The completion of the railway in the 'nineties of course altered these circumstances. Now, one is surprised that the state capital of the Congo is not on Stanley Pool, instead of at Boma — utterly out of touch with the vast central basin of the Congo, though in direct steam ^ ^^^^^ communication 0^'^~'' -^^^^^^L. Europe and f_ IWI^W the rest of the world. .iS^ Grenfell ac- cordingly, to es- cape the misery of intermittent starvation, em- ployed the spring 73- CITHARINUS CONGICUS, A FISH MtXH EATEX BV THE of I 888 in found- inor the new sta- tion at Bolobo, which was after- wards to become his home for many years. Whilst still residing at Arthington (Nshasa) Grenfell in his spare moments sketched out an African romance which he would write some day (but apparently never did). " I have been thinking that the history of a pair of tusks would make a very interesting topic for an African romance. The elephant shall be killed in some pitfall or by poisoned arrows in the very heart of Africa. There shall be a description of the happy family life of the hunter who secured the tusks. One of these tusks will be sold to native traders for brass collars. They take it down to the Congo — vicissitudes of canoe voyage — tusk sometimes hidden in the river sand — fights — blood-brotherhood — tusk bargained for, fought for, wrangled about, traded away at Stanley Pool, then the land transport to the European factories on the West Coast, etc. etc. Again, an Arab N.\TIVES OF STANLEY POOL AND THE UPPER CONGO (This species, about twelve to fifteen inches long, is smoked, and becomes an important article in native commerce). Its name, and that of the other Citharini, b Loboko among the Bayanzi. enriched by Stanley s expeditions in the Congo State. But his people cared nothing for agriculture and hindered all the State's efforts at improving the local food supply. After several attempts at futile risings the remnant of tlie South-Stanley-Pool Bateke returned to the lands north of Stanley Pool, from which they had come. The sites of their towns are now flourishing plantations. TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY 179 raid, the hunter's wife is carried off to be a slave. The hunter takes the other tusk from his store and redeems his wife from the Arab captor. Then a description of the overland journey to Zanzibar, the slave transport, etc. etc. As likely as not both tusks may meet in the auction room at the London Docks." ^ During July 1888 terrible stories reached Grenfell and other persons residing at Stanley Pool (through the return- ing members of the Emin Pasha relief expedition, Belgian officials and others) as to events connected with the rearguard of Stanley's expedition at the mouth of the Aruwimi and on the Upper Congo. The only excuse for touching on this painful matter is the fact that these stories are recorded by Grenfell in the summer of 1888, whereas they were not pub- lished to the world by Stanley himself until 1891. It is perhaps better not to rake up the memory of these doings, though it is necessary to say that Grenfell in his private diary records evidence taken down from eye-witnesses, and that some of his stories or details are more sensational than what has been made known. He himself felt the shame of these deeds having been committed or permitted by Englishmen, and this remembrance perhaps, amongst other considerations, should temper our denunciations of other nationalities. On the 31st of August 1888 Grenfell notes down a long interview with Herbert Ward, according to whom if the Arabs detailed by Tipu-Tipu to assist Stanley's expedition had not behaved loyally after the death of Major Barttelot, Jamieson and Bonny would also have been killed by the Manyema, and nothing would have been left in personnel or stores of the rearguard expedition. "The Arabs were a never- w^anting bodyguard day and night." On the other hand, he states that Tipu-Tipu was asking an additional ^20,000 for leading a relief expedition to save Emin Pasha and Stanley, via Nyangwe and Unyoro. With regard to events at San Salvador since the Portuguese had established their protectorate over the kingdom of Kongo, Grenfell describes in his diary (1888) the well-meant attempts of a certain bishop to establish monogamy in this region by in- ducing the King of San Salvador to become the husband of one wife and then to present himself for baptism. Unfor- tunately, the wife chosen was already betrothed to another man, ' Most of these "suggestions" are found together at one place in Grenfell's diary, in June 12 1888. Other allusions to this crop up later on. P'or the reader's convenience I have put them together. i8o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO and both parties were unwilling to forego marriage in order that the woman might become the single spouse of the King of Kongo. Just as the marriage was to take place the queen- elect bolted with her lover. The forty pre-existing queens of Kongo raised a great clamour at being disbanded. However, inducements were offered to them to depart, to the runaway to return, and at length the wedding took place. The new queen 74. HERBERT WARD AND HIS .SECTION OF THE E.MIX PAbHA EXTEDITIOX OX THE CONGO IN CANOES had consented to break off her other engagement on the condi- tion that she was married in a bonnet and dress of yellow silk, in yellow shoes and stockings. The aged king was wheeled to his wedding in a Bath chair borrowed from a European. At a later date, however, Grenfell and Bentley write frankly and even gratefully on the subject of the Portuguese, declaring that they had been not only fair, but kind to the Baptist Mission ; that they had established security on the trade routes, and had not unduly oppressed the natives. They had done all this, moreover, with a remarkably small show of force. When the old King of San Salvador died in 1891, the TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY people were allowed to elect a successor in the person of Mfutila, the late king's nephew/ Mfutila attempted to sig- nalize his assumption of the kingly office by acts of rapine, and amongst other thinQs decided to lure the Portuouese Resident into leaving the fort and coming to a council of chiefs, at which it would be easy to assassinate him. The small garri- son of native soldiers could then be over- i " iUWH^^^ come and Portuo uese rule driven out of the country. The Resident, however, was a Por- tuguese type worthy of the old days of the conquistadores. He had only about ten soldiers at his station, but acted as thouoh o he was master of the situation, declined to gro out to meet the chiefs (since such was not the custom of the representative of Por- tugal), but would be very happy to receive them at his Resi- dency, promising- to keep his soldiers in barracks whilst they were there.' The chiefs accepted the Resident's invitation, and came with a thousand men arme d with guns. The Resident invited them to spread their mats in the shade and state their case. Whilst waiting for a spokesman, one of the men in wriggling about pressed 1 Mfutila died in 1896, and was succeeded by the present king, Dom Henrique. ^ Bentley records of the same Resident the following anecdote. Soon after he arrived at San Salvador, the chief of one of the large Congo towns sent him two bullets (the ordinary declaration of war), and the message that he was going to attack him in two days' time. The Resident replied that it would be an excellent plan thus to try conclusions, and sent the chief two barrels of powder, inquiring at the same time whether he had a sufficient number of guns. The warlike chief was so disconcerted that he returned the powder, lest it should be subsequently charged for at trade rates, and stated he had no intention of fighting. 75- MFUTILA, THE LATE KING.OF KONGO, SUCCEEDED HIS F.\THER AT SAN SALVADOR IN 1 892 i82 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the trigger of his loaded gun. It went off, and the man sittino- next to him was shot through the arm. In another minute there was a terrific cloud of dust caused by the bolting of the chiefs and their men. When this cloud was blown away there only remained on the scene the Resident and the wounded man, who was handed over to the Baptist Mission for treatment. Subsequently the Portuguese Resident induced the chiefs and their following to reassemble, and dismissed them after a wise discourse on the necessity in their affairs for good government. 76. CHIEKS AND NOBLEMEN AT SAN SALVADOR, KINGDOM OF KONGO Since that time the ancient kingdom of Kongo and the work of the Baptist and the Catholic Missions therein has continu- ously prospered under Portuguese rule, to the enrichment of the natives quite as much as to the advantage of I^uropean commerce. The testimony of Grenfell and Bentley might be borne in mind by those who are obliged to criticize the work of Portugal elsewhere in Africa. Nevertheless, Grenfell wrote in his diary on April 11 1S86 (when steaming up the Lulua River) : " Last night Lieut. Wissmann gave me a terrible indictment of Portuguese rule in (inner) Angola." This referred chiefly to the entrusting of responsible positions and power to negro officials who abused TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY 185 their positions in the Kwango district to carry on an active slave trade with the Luba countries in order to send labourers to the Sao Thome plantations. "The labourers never return." "The Angolan sugar plantations are notoriously unhealthy ; of eighty Baluba sold to one plantation only four were left three years later." The white convicts sent as soldiers or colonists to the Kwango region "were a disgrace to Portugal; they were clad like natives . . . would beg for a little cloth from any European traveller they might meet . . . and their conduct towards the natives was often abominable." But in 1886-7 Portugal took her duties more seriously. Officers of distinction like Henrique de Carvalho replaced the previously inferior type of official ; convicts were no longer despatched to regions of the interior where their actions could not be controlled ; and although the recruitment of labourers or apprentices for the cacao plantations of Sao Thome still con- tinues, it is at any rate a system directly carried on by respon- sible government officials, and although criticizable in many aspects, it is not so bad as the disgraceful slave trade which still existed in Angola as late as 1885 and which kept all south- central Congoland seething with civil war, rapine, razzias, and revenges. After the departure from the Congo and the Aruwimi of the Emin Pasha relief expedition in 1889, the Arab attitude towards the Congo Independent State became insolent and threaten- ing. There was a Belgian "Resident" (M. de Saint Marcq) at the Court of Tipu-Tipu [Kasongo], but he and his secretary became at last little more than hostages for the immobility of the State. The Commandant of Stanleyville (?Van de Velde)^ dared not oppose the Arabs ordering up ammunition and guns even from the west coast, by the trading steamers of the Dutch company. Tipu-Tipu threatened at intervals to come down with a fleet of canoes and attack Leopold- ville ; but early in 1890, for health or other reasons, he deemed it prudent to retire to Zanzibar. He was succeeded by a kind of duumvirate — his son Sefu, and an old Arab on the Lomami named Mohara. Soon afterwards the Manyema allies of the Arabs began to attack Belgian outposts or expeditions. In June 1890 the representative of the Congo Free State at ' He was supported later by the Austrian officer, Lehrmann (afterwards com- manding the military escort of the Lunda expedition). Of him, at Stanley Falls Grenfell writes on the 24th May 1890: "Lehrmann is really the right man in the right place, and has created a great impression by putting one of the big Arabs in prison." i86 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Stanley Pool seized the Peace by force and impressed her into the service of the State to take part in the now threatened war against the Arabs. One representative of the Mission was allowed to remain on board, partly in charge of the machinery, but the Peace was sent away from Stanley Pool to Lusambo on the Sankuru loaded with ammunition. The enforced service of the mission steamer was stated to have saved the political situation in south-central Congoland, and the State was enabled to make headway against the Arabs. But the Mission not unnaturally resented being thus mixed up with the wars — just or unjust — that the State conducted on its own responsi- bility. A protest was made at Brussels ; all monetary com- pensation for the seizing of the steamer was refused, but the assurances of the State were accepted with good grace that no such incident would be allowed to occur aoain.^ Grenfell had been repeatedly very ill with fever during 1889 and 1890. He was, moreover, much upset at the seizure of the steamer, and left for England at the end of 1890 to lodge a protest, and also to make better arrange- ments regarding upper river transport. The expansion of the Mission, and the dangrer of the mission stations beingr left without supplies, made the sending out of a second steamer imperative. Consequently, during 1891 a new vessel, the Goodxvill — a larger steamer than the Peace — was con- structed on the Thames, and was brought out by Grenfell at the end of that year. She was launched on the Upper Congo in December 1893. The entire work of her reconstruction was carried out by African artisans, and by this time it had been found possible to work not only the steamers of the Baptist Mission but those of other agencies entirely by natives of the Upper Congo, most of whom had received their first training on the Peace. The well-known mission engineer, Bungudi, the son of a chief living in the vicinity of Stanley Pool, had resided at Chiswick for nearly a year, taking part in the construction of the new steamer. 1 My version of this incident is not considered by Grenfell's colleagues to meet the case. It has been pointed out to me that Grenfell had offered at this time to make two trips to the Sankuru with ordinary stores, but that he flatly refused to have the mission steamer employed on any war service. The State at this juncture had two steamers of its own available, while, on the other hand, the Baptist mission stations on thf Upper Congo were "in peril through lack of supplies." Grenfell seems to have esented this action deeply as an abuse of local authority and an attempt to implicate the mission in all the features of the State policy, good or bad. CHAPTER XI THE LUNDA EXPEDITION THE Arab occupation of all eastern Congoland had deflected Belgian energies between 1886 and 1890 into the basin of the Kasai. This wonderful river system would enable them eventually to take the Arabs in flank. Meantime it was im{)ortant not to clash with the claims ot Portugal, and therefore to establish as definitely as possible the boundaries between An- oola and the Congo Inde- pendent State. It was per- haps because of the judicious attitude which Grenfell and other Baptist missionaries had adopted towards the Portuguese in the settlement of Congo ques- tions [as well as towards the Belsi'ian, French, and German e x - plorers — any- one, in short, who was at- tempting to develop the c,^px,\i>j gorin riding an ox (j\ mi: lunma Cono-o reyion expedition 1S7 i88 GEORGR GRENFELL AND THE CONGO on right lines] that the King of the Belgians as Sovereign of the Congo Independent State appointed George Grenfell to be his Commissioner in 1891 for the delimitation of the boundary in the western Congo basin between Portucxal and the Conoo Stale. After a holiday in England during 1891, occu[)ied with the designs for the new steamer, Grenfell reached the Congo in December of that year. But various delays occurred in con- nection with the Portuguese Commissioners, and it was not until the loth of May 1902 that the Belgian (Congolese) section under the civil command of Grenfell left Matadi on the Lower Congo. He was accompanied by Captain-Commandant Gorin and M. Froment. Strict orders had been griven from Brussels and Lisbon that the expedition was to be a pacific one, even if attempts to ward off fighting should cause delay. The Com- missioners were instructed that it was preferable that they should spend a longer time over their task (collecting as much geographical information as possible) than incur hostilities by rushing ahead heedless of obstacles and of native suspicions. Apparently for this reason, Grenfell's portion of the expedition, which was to meet the Portuguese continoent on the Kwanoo River, pursued a somewhat deviating course in their eastward journey. The railway to Stanley Pool not yet being con- structed for any distance, they marched overland from Matadi to Lukuno-u.^ After a journey to the Baptist mission station of Wathen, near Manyanga, Grenfell returned to Lukungu, and the expedition then marched in a south-easterly direction towards the Portuguese frontier. In the chief's house at Mayambula, to the south-east of Lukungu, he notices a crucifix, apparently some centuries old, to which the native hunters go to make an obeisance before starting out on their expeditions. This region to the south of the Lower Congo, west of Longitude 16°, is mountainous and picturesque — a broken plateau which reaches to altitudes of 3,000 feet in parts. Gren- fell's highest recorded altitude was 2,440 feet, near Luvitiku. "The views from these heights are magnificent, and the rocky- escarpment of the plateau we are leaving is most striking. It is quite perpenchcular in many places." He notes that the people on this plateau of beautiful scenery and abundant food supplies have a distinct Portuguese civilization, dating from ^ In his diary Grenfell appends these notes on the petrology of the cataract region : " Oxide of iron, hyaline quartz round about Boma. Hyaline quartz and gneiss at Musuko. Saccharoidine iron quartz and mica schist between Matadi and Isangila. At Isangila, flint and ferruginous micaceous schist. Argillaceous shale at Ntombi. Limonite at Manyanga." < 1 3" c i 1 . ~ to. CLeo c.T-' «-^e^t "er>A IX ft t,4j^cjc , • -o-vi fejcO: e5>^w t P* *^^e^ L^fr^ct e/vut* - C ■ W I - r / 79. FACSIMILE OK KING LEOPOLD'S COMMISSION TO THE REV. GEORGE GREXKELL TO SERVE AS PLENIPOTENTIARY ON THE FRONTIER DELIMITATION COMMISSION FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE FRONTIER BETWEEN PORTUGAL AND THE CONCiO STATE igo GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO several centuries ago, and that all the leading men have a Portuguese name in addition to their native one, and greatly value the title of Dom. On this journey Grenfell and his European companions were riding donkeys, apparently quite a novelty in this as in other parts of the Congo. The natives of course knew enough of the white man by tradition to express little sur- prise at anything he might do ; ^ but their dogs and fowls 80, M. FROMENT ON T}lt LU.NDA tXPtDIIlOX exhibited extraordinary fear and amazement at the spectacle of a man riding an unknown beast. The expedition followed the valley of the little Lukungu River on to this plateau. Still crossing the plateau of the cataract region, on his way to the Portuguese frontier and the Kwango River, Grenfell notes the relative rapidity with which terrestrial changes take place in this region, partly from the action of water both above and below Qround. This causes ' Grenfell records in his diary that when Lieutenant (afterwards Baron) Dhanis visited the great chief Kiamvo, he came to the capital of Mwene Puto Kasongo riding an ass ; and that the great potentate of the lower Kwango, not to be outdone, mounted the shoulders of one of his sturdiest men and thus rode to meet Dhanis on equal terms. But when Dhanis flung himself oft" his donkey Kiam\ o was unable to do the same, for the retainer clasped his chiefs legs until he was promised a pay- ment. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION landslides and chasms. Many a native path still exists leading nowhere, because there has been a landslip, or a river has changed its course, and thus undermined some promontory, or has torn its way through an alluvial plain. The violent rains and floods rising to thirty feet above dry-season level mioht block the channel of a watercourse with trees and gravel. Then the stream is abruptly deflected at a higher level, and cuts its way through a new channel. The terrific heat of the 8l. HAMMOCK-TRAVELLING ON THE LUNDA EXPEDITION sun makes the rocks friable, and prepares them for the diluvial action of the water. This plateau region of the Lower Congo was well supplied with domestic sheep of the West African breed. Some of the villages Grenfell describes as being very old, judging by the orrowth of their fence trees. Banza Makuta, the scene of Grenfell and Comber's rebuffs in 1878 and 1880, was now found to be quite won over to the European. It flew the flag of the Congo State, and its principal chief sent a large contingent of boys to the Baptist mission school at Wathen. In places where the Commissioners had to walk at this season (early June, namely, ihe end of autumn), the immensely 192 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO high grass with its barbed seeds,' so characteristic of much of tropical Africa outside the forest region, was most distressing. The country as they proceeded eastwards still continued to be hilly. Camps were often at altitudes above 2,000 feet, and heavy mists ushered in the dry season.^ Grenfell notices outcrops of limestone in this country be- tween the lower Congo and the lower Kwango. Very often the graves of important chiefs or their relations are marked by slabs of limestone, especially round Kinsuka. In some of the villages they traversed they met groups of circumcised boys whose bodies were whitewashed all over.^ The villages of this region are supplied with goat-houses raised three feet above the ground, and strong pig-styes of heavy adzed boards constructed to keep out leopards. The pig is very common as a domestic animal throughout all western Congoland, owing its introduction, however, to the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.'* As the expedition marched away from this plateau region towards the Kwango, many conHicting rumours reached it as to the attitude of the natives under the rule of the oreat chief Kiamvo, otherwise known as Mwene Puto Kasongo. When Grenfell and other Baptist missionaries had estab- lished the navigability of the Kwango from its junction with the Kasai as far as the rapids of Kingunji, this information, coupled with that collected by Von Mechow, led the Govern- ' Grenfell appends this list of grasses, in which he attempts to indicate by descriptive names the most prominent kinds : " Fretsaw, Big Oat, Small Oat Grass, Blue Grass, Feather Grass, Big Bermuda Grass, Tuft-head, Chain-stitch, Flowering Grass, Brown-tufted Grass, White-tufted, Small Flowering Grass, grass with a speckled husk." - This mist — the cachimbo of the Portuguese — makes travelling very disagree- able in regions of long grass. The traveller passing through this herbage is wet to the skin in a very short time, as the grass is loaded with moisture deposited by the mist. Grenfell makes a note to the effect that in the dry season on this account he never starts till about half-past seven in the morning, to give the sun, which rises at six, time to dry up the excessive moisture ; whereas in the rainy season he starts soon after five, as the sun rising in an unclouded sky (it very seldom rains in the morning) dries up what little moisture remains from overnight. ^ Grenfell notes that the circumcision houses, that is to say, huts or dwellings in which these youths live apart during their time of initiation, are marked with an emblem apparently phallic in origin. * The pig is not an inherently domestic animal amongst negroes, as is the case with the dog, the goat, sheep, ox, or even fowl. Almost all races possess a word for pig, but it is one originally applied to the wild bush pigs {Po/niiiocha'rus), which indeed in North Central and North-Western Africa has occasionally been domesti- cated by the negro. A wild boar of the true Sus type, related to the wild boar of Europe and of India, exists in tropical Africa in the north-eastern Nile region and perhaps in Kordofan ; it has even been reported as occurring north of the central Niger ; but this animal has never been domesticated by the Hamitic or Negroid peoples. The domestic pig only exists (away from the coast regions) in tropical Africa, in the southern basin of the Congo. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 193 ment of the Congo to make a bold bid for the possession of tlie Kwango basin. They had accordingly sent various Belgian officers, especially the celebrated Dhanis, to open up relations with Kiamvo and to establish a garrison at Popokabaka in the Yaka country, close to the Kwango banks, and on the edge of the plateau region. Kiamvo or the Mwene Puto Kasongo was apparently one of those rulers of Lunda origin that have played such a con- spicuous part in the negro history of the southern basin of the 82. THE KWANGO RIVER SEEN FROM THE FORT OF POPOKAHAKA Congo. The most celebrated potentate of this type was the MwataYanvo^ of Musumba, about midway between the Atlantic coast and Tanganyika [a little south of 8" S. Lat.], in the central Lunda country. The Lunda people seem to have had some community of origin with the Lua or Luba, whose range extends between Tanganyika and the Kasai, south of the 6th parallel of S. Lat. This Luba- Lunda group of Bantu peoples must have reached their first home on the south-west coast of Tanganyika (Lukuga-Marungu) from the north, by travelling along the western shore of the lake. Then they extended in time across the Congo basin south of the dense forest region. ' The correct rendering according to Carvalho is Muala Ya iivita. I. — O 194 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Their rise into prominence may have been contemporaneous with the European Renaissance — say between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries : a period during which there were notable Bantu migrations and foundinos of states in South Central Africa. First the Bakuba, then the Baluba, and later the Alunda arose as conquering and ruling castes through skill in weapon-making, hunting, and warfare. An individual here and there, probably of Hima (Gala) descent, would emerge from the crowd and by dint of courage, resource, inventive- ness, or the obtaining of better weapons, become a mighty hunter, and thus supply his people with food and adornments. Round him a community would group itself, attracting other communities till a kingdom or empire was founded. It was thus that the kingdoms of Uoanda and Unyoro, of Kongo and of the Luba, Lunda, Kioko, and other Bantu countries came into existence. No doubt this commencement of Bantu state-building was a far-off echo of the Arab invasions of North Central Africa and even of the European Renaissance. These movements, with their introduction of a higher civiliza- tion and superior weapons, affected the Hamites and Nilotic negroes, who in turn reacted on the Bantu of the lake regions. According to the researches of Torday, Carvalho, and others a Luba prince seems to have infused the divine fire into the Lunda or Bungo people [the word Lunda, it may be re- marked, means " brother, friend, comrade " in the southern Luba dialects]. A Lunda adventurer settled about three hun- dred years ago on the Kangombe plateau in S. E. Angola, and from out of the Makosa tribe formed the celebrated raiding tribe, Kioko or Chibokwe. The Mwata Yanvo, who until the foundation of the Congo Free State and the division of spheres of influence between it and Portugal was practically the suzerain over all the Lunda and many of the Luba peoples, is the fourteenth in descent from the traditional founder of the dynasty in the seventeenth cen- tury. At one time the influence of this monarchy stretched as far to the south-east as the lands of the Kazembe, east of Lake Mweru,^ and as far to the west as the Kwango River and the boundaries of Angola. About a hundred years ago, a Lunda adventurer at the > The Kazembe, indeed, was originally a viceroy of the Mwata Yanvo's appoint- ment. There are still Lunda people living in the Lake Mweru region. It is probable, indeed, that before the coming of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century a wave of Lunda-Luba influence had brought about the creation of the kingdom of Kongo, as it had created the Kioko people in a corner of S.E. Angola. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION head of a trading- or hunting caravan established himself amongst the Bayaka on the Kwango River. Previous to this event, a great trading race — the Imbangala — had been formed in the valley of the middle Kwango by a mixture of Lunda influence with less civilized people — probably the cannibal and savage " Jaggas " of Portuguese history. The descendant of the Lunda chief who thus established a sort of monarchy amongst the Bayaka with its title of " Mwene Puto Kasongo " (Kasongo, the lord of the Portuguese^) was 83. THE KIAMVO, MWENE PUTO KASONGO (CENTRE FIGURE) From a photograph taken by Pere Butage in 1906. known as Kiamvo or Kiamfu. In the early 'nineties of the last century this chieftain was a source of great anxiety to the Congo Free State. A Congo garrison had been established on the verge of his territory at Popokabaka, and thither Grenfell's expedition was bound. After leaving Ntumba Mani rumours began to reach the expedition that the Kiamvo might prove unfriendly. In 1889 the Congo State had commenced to open up relations with the Kiamvo of the Bayaka on the Kwango, ' Kasongo originally meant " blacksmith," and means that still in the Luba speech. 196 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO and had despatched an expedition under Captain Lehrmann.^ When he neared the Kiamvo's headquarters at " Mwene Puto Kasonoo " he was sick, and was travelling" in a hammock. At the sight of a hostile force on the road in front of them, he descended and advanced to meet them with only a walking- stick. A native threw at him a burning brand, which he managed to dodge. Another rushed at him with a knife, but by this time Lehrmann's "boys" had come up with a shot-gun. Lehrmann escaped being stabbed by shooting his opponent full in the chest. He soon had his four- teen Zanzibaris round him, and the discharge of their ouns killed thirty of the natives. The chief i)[ the village received a revolver- .^hot which shattered his right ^^kIw ^^^^HP^'r knee. After the fio'ht was over o the village chief came to Lehr- mann for medical treatment, which was accorded to all the wounded. After that the chief became a firm Iriend of Lehrmann, and was of some assistance to Grenfell. k inding the Kiamvo so decidedly hostile, Lehrmann retreated to Stanley Pool. In i8go, Lieutenant (after- wards Baron) Dhanis was sent up to deal with the Kiamvo. He moved with such rapidity from 84. CAPTAIN DRAG LEHRMANN villao-e to villaQ-e that he cliscon- certed all attempts at opposing his progress. He finally faced the Kiamvo with the offer ot a large present of trade goods or a military attack. The Kiamvo sullenly chose the present, and the Belgians were allowed to build at Popokabaka, near the east bank of the Kwango. Here several Belgian officers with a small Zanzibari oarrison had been with difficulty holding their own for the last two years, the Bayaka constantly attacking them with or without Kiamvo's orders. ' Herr Drag Lehrmann is a Croat from near Laibacli, in Austria. He was one of the most distinguished officers of the Congo Free State between 18S2 and 1896: much liked and trusted by the natives. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 197 The Kiamvo (who at the time of writing- — some fifteen years later — is a state prisoner at Leopoldville) was described by Grenfell as "capricious and cruel, taking life for the slightest offence, or for no offence at all, and keeping up a terrorism by which he rules. He will summon a chief (whom he thinks is waxing too powerful) to his presence with some flattering- message, and then strike off his head."^ As to the white men installed at his town with a garrison of sixty or seventy soldiers, they had a very bad time of it. The two Belgian officers — Dunart and Vollont — had long beards, and these when the Kiamvo lost his temper with them he would attempt to pull out. They were frequently threatened with death when coming to discuss apparently friendly matters. He would alternate this treatment with buffoonery and presents of palm wine. At last the position of these Belgian officers at the Kiamvo's capital (Mw^ene Puto Kasongo) became untenable. All com- munications had been cut off, they were threatened with star- vation ; their messengers and porters were killed, also such of the small garrison as exposed themselves outside the defences hastily thrown up. The officers resolved therefore to make a desperate sortie. They suddenly burst out of their own stock- aded settlement on the rest of the town, which was divided into different quarters by strong barricades. In their desperation they captured these one after the other and left some two hundred of the enemy killed and the greater part of the town in flames. The attackino- force under the three Beloian officers consisted of scarcely more than sixty men, and they used 18,000 cartridges in this attempt to break out of Mwene Puto Kasongo. From here they marched northwards to the Belgian fort of 1 Dr. Biittner, a German explorer of south-west Congoland, visited the Kiamvo and his Court in 1885. On his subsequent journey to Stanley Pool he gave Grenfell the following account of his experiences. His capital on the Nganga River, near the Kwango, was a large place, containing many thousands of people. The Kiamvo kept up great state, and would not see Biittner for two days. He was very cruel, and killed many people on accusations of sorcery, chiefly by subjecting them to the poison ordeal (an infusion of the ErythropJilceum bark). The hillsides outside the town running steeply down to the river were simply strewn with human remains, and Biittner's boys brought home several skulls. Another expedition that had visited Kiamvo's brought away a harvest of upper and lower jaws. Biittner's specimens were generally lacking the lower jaw, and it seemed impossible thus to get complete skulls, the fact being that the victims of Kiamvo's cruelty were thrown out to rot in the sun, and were generally eaten by the pigs, with which the town swarmed. The pigs after their repast scattered the bones right and left. Dr. Biittner was rather disgusted at receiving one of these pigs as a present from Kiamvo. Upon his declining to eat pork, Kiamvo killed one of his dozen cows and presented it to him. Only Kiamvo himself was allowed to keep cattle, and he had a small herd of not more than twelve. The domestic fowls of the country were a relatively large breed. igS GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Popokabaka. Before reaching this place they were attacked by the Kiamvo's forces. One of the white officers was wounded, and many of the Zanzibaris were killed, but the remnant reached Popokabaka, and enabled that place to defend itself against the Kiamvo's attacks. An attempt was then made to evacuate Popokabaka and retreat westwards, but the pioneering force was re- pelled by the Kiamvo's men, and at last their only course 85. KWANGO RIVER FROM BEACH NEAR POPOKABAKA was to remain at Popokabaka in a half-famished condition until reinforcements connected with Grenfell's expedition reached them. Hearing of this expedition, Kiamvo had reconsidered his attitude, and made overtures for peace. About this time he uttered one of those cryptic sayings so characteristic of the negro, the interpretation of which is not easy. "The cater- pillar fell into the water, and his hairs came out." This was interpreted by Grenfell to mean either " I have fallen into trouble and my people have left me," or " 1 have no longer means with which to defend myself" (the hairs being the weapons of the caterpillar). The defence of THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 199 Popokabaka and the whole situation were becoming much easier owing- to the possibihty of direct steamer communica- tion between Stanley Pool and the Kingunji Rapids on the Kwango. Grenfell reached Popokabaka on the 4th of October 1892. The place was and remained for some time in a state of quasi-famine. Owing to the orders of the Kiamvo, the surrounding country was completely deserted by the inhabi- tants, who would make no market and bring no food for sale. The garrison lived mainly on the manioc roots which 86. GRENFELL'S TENT ON LUNDA EXPEDITION they dug up from the native plantations in the vicinity. A little fish was obtained from the river. Supplies of European provisions, however, began to come in by the overland route from Matadi. The expedition having been brought up to sufficient military strength — about four hundred men all told — the military section started off under the command of Captain Lehrmann, and forced its way to Kasongo, the headquarters of Kiamvo. Many a message had been sent on in advance explicitly warning Kiamvo against the consequences of pushing matters to an extremity. The expedition, he was told, was a peaceful one unless war was forced upon it. Fortunately Kiamvo decided to accept these overtures. He allowed the expedition to build 200 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO a new station close to the banks of the Kwango on the out- skirts of his chief town, Kasongo Lunda/ Grenfell and his wife left Popokabaka on November 7 1892 and joined the main expedition at Kasongo Lunda on November 16, having been very ill and weak on this journey, mainly performed by boats up the Kwango. " Kasongo Lunda " (he writes) " is 430 feet above the level of the river, and is reached by a road which is especially hilly during the first half. The path then strikes across a plateau, which has an altitude of about 1,700 feet above sea-level, and which is covered with forest and a dense undergrowth of pineapples. A steep descent of the path brings one to the Xganga stream, beyond which is an equally steep ascent leading up to the Kiamvo's new town, which is about a mile south of the old one abandoned in April 1892 after the battle with the State forces. The new town counts some nine hundred houses — everything has the appearance of being done in a hurry. . . . The State station, instead of being half a mile away, as formerly, is well within a hundred yards of the nearest house, and occupies a fine commanding position. . . . M. Lehrmann has made wonderful progress in the three weeks since he left Popo, having put up many good temporary buildings and ^ot the posts for a clay-walled house. The camp of the four hundred people presents a motley group of tents, huts, and shelters of every conceivable shape and kind ; but our departure in a day or two will allow the station settling down to a normal condition with seventy-five soldiers respectively quartered in three very comfortable barracks. " 17th November 1892. I am better this morning, and it is arranged for us to pay a visit to Mwene Puto Kasongo (the Kiamvo) at about 9 a.m. Mrs. Grenfell and myself, Captain-Commandant Gorin, and M. Froment therefore make our way towards his ' boma,' - taking chairs to sit on as well as umbrellas, for it threatens to rain. At about thirty yards from the entrance to the royal enclosure surrounding the Kiamvo's house we are halted by a military guard, and seat ourselves under the eaves of a friendly roof The Kiamvo's guard then informs him of our arrival, and an attendant brings forth a folding-chair which had been given to the king by M. Lehrmann ; another brings a few fathoms of red cloth to drape the chair. Two or three minutes, and a guard of some two hundred armed men are regularly lined on each side of the path from the doorway of the 'lumbu' to the place where we are sitting. Shortly afterwards the Kiamvo came forth, announced by his flute- player, and attended by a personal retinue of a dozen men and two players on big ' mbitis.' He seated himself in the centre of a semi- ^ This name revealed by Grenfell, which is ordinarily given to this historic site, shows the Lunda origin of the Kiamvo's monarchy. This station must have been founded about a hundred years ago, partly for the purpose of trading with the Portuguese on the Kwango. Mwene Puto, as already stated, means the lord or master of the Portuguese (Puto), i.e. the European, trade. Kasongo was the title, and Lunda a reference to the Lunda origin of the adventurer who made this his headquarters and was the ancestor of the Kiamvo. '- Boma is a Zanzibari word much used on the Congo and elsewhere, meaning a stockade. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 20I circle formed by his soldiers. Shortly afterwards, Mwene Huta (Lord of the Guns) approached his brother, the Kiamvo, and made a respect- ful obeisance by drawing his right hand across his breast and describing a graceful sweep with his left hand. We did not waste much time in preliminaries, but we scarcely entered upon our talk before a smart shower began to fall. One of our umbrellas covered the Kiamvo, and with the help of another we sat it out. I spoke of my wish to visit the Kiamvo some time ago and of being hindered by the war. Now that peace had been declared I was very glad to be able to come, and hoped peace would never again be broken. I spoke of my coming to Africa to tell the people about God, whose name they knew, and who 87. A METALLOPHONE FROM THE KONGO-KWAN(;0 REGION, CALLED MBITI BY THE N.ATIVES had made Himself known to us, and had sent us to tell His children everywhere of His fatherhood and of the work of reconciliation that had been accomplished for them." [Then followed a discussion on Christian theology.] "The Gospel, I fear, passed over their heads as something very good for white men, but of very little practical concern to them- selves." The Kiamvo took a great interest in the Ten Com- mandments, as did his people who were listening, but rather of the self-congratulatory kind ; for the Kiamvo boasted that as a race they never stole nor committed adultery, while such of his attendants as were bold enough expressed an emphatic approval of the law "Thou shalt not kill." " From the personal appearance of the Kiamvo, I judge he is a man capable of all the cruelty and despotism with which he is credited. 202 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO He is about forty-five, with a few grey hairs showing in his beard and head. His brother may be a couple of years younger, but is a man of comparatively pleasing countenance — very fat, yet very energetic. As master of the forces, his energy is manifest in his well-disciplined soldiers, who are really a very fine body of men." " In the afternoon Kiamvo gave orders for a dance, and in honour of my wife's presence he himself danced the madiumba, accompanied by the marimba. Previously, the dance was signalized by the killing of one or more slaves by the Kiamvo himself In deference to the new regime (which prevents his taking the life of his slaves), the Kiamvo tried to dance wielding a stick instead of the regular mpoko (a sort of Roman sword about two feet in length). A very short trial of the stick sufficed, for he relinquished it to call for the vipoko, which was carried by one of his officers. The change was the cause of some small trepi- dation to several amongst the onlookers, who feared that a touch of the sword might indicate them for the executioner. They were greatly relieved when the mpoko found a resting-place on the ground, instead of on some one's shoulder, which would have been the fatal sign." " The Kiamvo's wives — more than fifty of them — were very enthu- siastic in cheering their lord and master. Having neither caps nor bonnets wherewitli to let off the exuberance of their feelings, they pulled up grass and threw it in the air. " This was the first dance since the advent of the new regime, and a settlement of the difficulty which had been hanging over the country for months. Everybody seems greatly relieved, and it is to be hoped that better times are in store. It is very plain that Kiamvo's policy has been to surround himself with a comparatively overwhelming force and to keep his subjects in perpetual awe. He has opposed their gathering together in communities larger than villages of twenty to fifty houses. Yet the country is fertile and capable of supplying a large population, and it is only the repressive rule of the Kiamvo that makes him the ruler of a country of small and scattered villages. I have sometimes doubted whether the rule of a despot was not to be preferred before the anarchy of a series of independent head-men ; but from what I see here the doubt is quite dispelled. It is better far for Africa that each village should be a kingdom in itself and fight and struggle for its own existence, than that it should come under the rule of an autocrat at a distance who can only maintain his authority by fear and by the power of imposing cruelties. A wise autocrat acting for the good of his people does not seem to exist in Africa. In fact, the present condition of things seems altogether incompatible with a state that is not held together by mere cruel force. The more or less patriarchal rule that obtains in the distressingly anarchical districts governed by indepen- dent head-men, notwithstanding the lack of protection for life and property, is after all better for the people ; for a chief's slaves are his defenders, and certain rights have to be accorded to them, or they will run away to neighbouring head-men, who are often not slow to entice them. Poor Africa! It is indeed time that civilization stepped in to heal her many woes. The remedies here and there are very drastic, as THE LUNDA EXPEDITION bad as blue-stone and other caustics at times, but a thousand times better than to let the old sore go on festering. There come, it is true, the new sores of civilization — drink and syphilis and lax morality 1 Poor Africa ! Before leaving, the Kiamvo placed in the charge of Mr. and Mrs. Grenfell a little boy and girl, " Luvusu and Nsumba," so that they might remain with them for a year or two and be taught in the white man's school. They could then return to Kiamvo's town and serve as interpreters. Resuming his journey up the Kwango, Grenfell noticed that 88. IN THE BERTHON BOAT ON THE KWANGO RIVER, LUNDA EXPEDITION the hills on the west were much higher and more broken than those on the east. As the expedition journeyed southwards, however, the hills grew lower, and the river wider, passing through a country of rolling grass and low scrub. The expedi- tion was much distressed at this time with an unusually heavy ^ Grenfell's Lunda journal teems with instances of the detestable behaviour towards each other or towards the indigenous people of the more or less Lunda chieftains. Here is a sample : — "Witchcraft. 29th of January 1893. The war between Kakoba and Ngovo arose directly out of Ngovo's having killed two of six messengers sent by Kakoba to demand that Ngovo should drink the ordeal water and clear himself of the charge of having bewitched and caused the death of his father that he might be made chief in his place. It was the heads of these two men that we saw ornamenting the gate- posts of Ngovo's lumbu." 204 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO rainfall. The PortuQuese side of the Kwanoo was better peopled than that just taken over by the Congo Free State, partly owing, no doubt, to the increasing power of the Portu- guese and the consequent reluctance of the Kiamvo to raid to the west of the Kwango. At the deserted villagres alongr the Kiamvo's bank they took what food they required and left trade goods in payment to the absent owners. A good deal of hippo meat was obtained, which supplemented the food supply. 89. FRANZ JO>Kl lALI.s ul IHL KWAX'. . - , , k, I )] ( A' KkE I ' l;V THE AUSTRIAN EXPLORER VOX MECHOW, 1880 Several other " Mwene Putos " or Lords of the Portuguese markets are reported to exist besides the Kiamvo. Probably the title was arrogated by any bold adventurer that could con- trol a market-place on the Kwango. The natives south of the Kuhu confluence with the Kwango (some of them belong- ing to the Holo tribe) were found possessing Portuguese guns of a very antique type, dating from the seventeenth century.^ A little distance above the confluence of the Kuhu the boating party encountered the Franz Josef Falls of the Kwango," which effectually stop navigation south of this point. ' Later on he writes : "They are the most wonderful African trade guns I have ever seen (though they seem to be made in Birmingham), with fluted stocks. I saw one very old gun of Moorish style, with white-metal pins in the stock." - Discovered by von Mechow in 1880. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 205 North of the Franz Josef Falls the Kwango is fairly navigable as far as the Kingunji Cataracts, and even, at the season of full water, all the way down to the main Congo. The shore of the river below the Franz Josef Falls is strewn with a coarse shingle of huge pudding-stones, rounded pebbles four to six inches in diameter. At the falls themselves there is an out- crop of granitic rock. There is a certain change in the popula- tion at these falls. The Portuouese side of the Kwango was (in 1892) depopulated, but on the east bank the natives be- lonoed to the Batembo section of the Baholo. North of the Franz Josef Falls on the east bank, the people were Bayaka and Balunda, there known by the name of Benoro. The Batembo- Baholo wear their hair in long plaits, eight or ten in number, each plait terminating in strings of beads which reach to the shoulder.^ These Baholo were far more settled and civilized than the Bayaka, whom they ac- cused of always carrying their Q-uns slun"" under 9°- liAnouj pkoi'lk, i itkr k\van<;o their arms, and being "ready to fight, fight, fight and kill." It would almost seem here as though one was in the presence of two opposing currents of population, the Baholo having come up from the south and south-east, and the Bayaka from the north, ' Elsewhere Grenfell describes these Baholo as "very timid . . . the long tresses of the men falling to the shoulder and often to their breasts make them look very effeminate." "This race is tall and slender in shape, with regular features, straight noses, and good facial angle. Being very quiet and agreeable in manner, they con- trast most favourably with their Bayaka neighbours. There are no cicatrices on their bodies. The ends of their hair plaits are sometimes rolled in thin brass plates instead of beads, and then look very like old-fashioned bootlace tags, only the tags are as big as a pipe-stem, and two inches long. The men are much greater dandies than the women, though women of position are held in great respect, and in certain cases wield considerable authority. They are great cattle keepers." 2o6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The country contained less and less forest as the party pro- ceeded southwards up the valley of the Kwango. Where it was not cultivated, the grassy hills were dotted with stunted shrubs or scrubby trees, and this vegetation evidendy suffered severely from each successive annual bush fire. There were deep ravines exposing bright red clay, but the general aspect of the country was that of a level plateau four hundred feet above the Kwango that had been scored and scarred by the action of water. The soil was sandy, and suited best the cultivation of 91. RAPIDS OF THE KWANGO maize, though ground-nuts, castor-oil, tobacco, manioc, pump- kins, and okros were also grown ; but the annual bush fires (in Grenfell's opinion) were ruining the country, " impoverishing vast areas," These fires together with the wasteful native system of destroying the virgin forest for manioc plantations were gradually turning the country into a semi-desert, for the soil without the constant supply of leaf manure (from the trees) was poor and sandy, and fit for little but the cultivation of maize. Moreover the game, at one time abundant in this region, was driven far away by the ravages of the bush fires. The story that Grenfell tells in his diary of this rapid deterioration of a land from the unchecked annual fires by THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 207 which the natives seek to destroy the long grass and also to kill small mammals, etc., is familiar to most African explorers who have travelled outside the restricted area of existing virgin forest. During the six years that the present writer spent in the Nyasaland Protectorate the devastations of the bush fires scarcely ranked second in his mind with those of the slave- traders. In this respect the white man has entered negro Africa none too soon. The negro left to his own elementary ideas of agriculture was rapidly turning his continent into a desert. Undoubtedly the rain supply of Africa has been largely modified by the disafforesting of the country, and by the gradual destruction of vegetation from the annual bush fires. On the other hand, if the native could argue the question he would say, " These bush fires enable us to get rid of the intoler- able obstruction of the long grass with its barbed seeds. They also destroy venomous snakes, and above all, poisonous mosquitoes, while from the ashes of the burnt vegetation we can at any rate manure the ground sufficiently for one or two crops of food stuffs." The reply to this would be that mosquitoes are best kept under by assiduous cultivation, and that the presence of live-stock would afford quite sufficient manure for fertilizino- the soil. When the expedition reached the Tungila River it was face to face with one of those unexpected difficulties in African travel. The Tungila looked a small stream on the map, but owing to the heavy rains it was about as safe and as easy to ford as the Thames would be at hioh tide at London Bridg-e. The timid natives had hidden their canoes, and Grenfell and his party had to construct rafts out of sticks and bundles of dried papyrus stalks. They constructed one twelve feet long and four feet wide. By means of this (though it only took five men and five loads at each passage) they were able to cross the Tungila without the help of the natives, though the latter, seeing this, came to their assistance at the eleventh hour. Even when the opposite shore was reached, a swamp four feet in depth had to be traversed for nearly a mile. Then came a steep walk uphill, and at last the Europeans were able to change their clothes after walking in water and mud for more than six hours, thankful when they reached dry ground to eat as break- fast and lunch a few roasted corn-cobs. On their arrival, how- ever, in the town on the hill (Mutala or Mukazela) they found a friendly but dignified old chief who was the owner of a fine herd of cattle, one of which he bestowed on the expedition in order that they might have fresh beef. But his town was un- 2o8 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO bearable through the flies attracted by the cattle. Before leaving his abode they noticed a face carved in the semicircular board over his doorway, which Grenfell describes as a really remarkable piece of high relief, quite suggestive of Greek art. At the neighbouring big town of Kavina the young and intelligent chief was much taken with a dog belonging to one of the Belgian officers, and offered three cows or three slaves for it. At the neighbouring town of Kimbindu the expedition was menaced with trouble. Some of the porters had been stealing manioc in the fields, and the excited natives wished to shoot the thieves. Grenfell said, " No fighting! We will pay." "No," replied the natives; "we will shoot the thieves." Grenfell replied, " Here are all our soldiers : see how strong we are. If one of our men is killed there will be war. If you will bring your manioc we will buy it : hungry men must be fed." The chief of the town saw the reasonableness of this position, and this episode ended quite happily in presents from both sides. As a matter of fact the temper of the natives at this town and in the surrounding districts was exacerbated by their own scarcity of food. They had just gone through a severe famine, during which slaves had been sold for eighty manioc roots each. Grenfell remarks that this scarcity simply arose from the ridiculous native laws, which imposed a long period of absten- tion from work whilst the people were mourning the deaths of notabilities — chiefs and relations, more especially the chief of the big town on Portuguese territory far to the south — Kapenda Kamulemba. This last death had resulted in a six months' abstention from agricultural work, which had resulted in a famine. This is one of many instances which might be quoted to show that the negro is very far from happy when left to his own devices. The Portuguese section of delimitation was encountered at Kasongo Luamba, to the south of the Tungila, on the Nguri- Akama hill. It consisted of Senhor Sarmento (accompanied by Mme. Sarmento), Lieutenant Sarmento, and the celebrated African traveller and ethnologist, Henrique de Carvalho. The Portuguese had been awaitino- for three months the arrival of Grenfell and his expedition, and had several times received the rumour that the Congo representatives had been cut up by the Kiamvo. The Portuguese were travelling very comfortably, with three mules, several riding-oxen, large tents, and a caravan of over three hundred porters and soldiers. When the chief and people of Kasongo Luamba found that THE LUNDA EXPEDITION these two expeditions were to meet as friends, and there was not to be war (as they had half supposed) between the Congo Independent State and Portugal, with consequent ravages of their own country, they gave vent to great demonstrations of delight, much firing of powder from their extraordinary old guns (with fluted stocks, and some in Moorish style with wh ite-metalpins driven into the wood), extravagant dancing to the accompaniment of the marimba (the xylo- phone), which Gren- fell here heard and saw for the first time, " the best African music I have ever come across," and state pro- cessions of the leading chiefs and their friends. Some of these arrived carrying bows and arrows, and yet garbed in hats, shirts, and even black frock-coats and trousers, dragoon hel- mets, red sashes, and big country cloths ! From the confluence of the Tunoila with the Kwango, at the end of December 1 892, Grenfell journeyed east and north-east in zio^- zags jointly with the Portuguese expedition. As they neared the Wamba River they came within the echoes of a fierce struggle which was going on between two potentates — Kanzori and Kahungula — ■ for the possession of a royal fetish indicating supreme rank. This was made of the tendons of human arms and leos.^ o ' On his return journey Cirenfell notes the issue of the struggle: "i2th of April 1893. At our present camping-place we met two of Kahungula's men, who report their chief having been killed by Kanzori. It seems that Kanzori after retiring to the left bank of the Wamba sent messengers and a goat and plantain as a sign of friendship to Kahungula, explaining that he had no grievance against him, but only I. — P 92. MAJOR AM) M.MK. sAiniKXlO, LUNDA EXPEDITION 2IO GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Whilst these chieftains, these petty, bloodthirsty tyrants of Lunda origin, fought and fled, the Baholo peasantry between the Kwango and the Wamba kept as much as possible aloof from these Wars of the Roses and devoted themselves to their sleek herds of cattle. The waters of some of the eastern affluents of the Kwango (such as the Lue) were saline and the grass of the salt marshes suited the cattle particularly w^ell. They did not thrive below an altitude of 2,300 feet. The mention of such an elevation shows that Grenfell's party had, in leaving the narrow Kwango valley, mounted the 93. THE MEMBERS OF THE LUM'A 1 .ELl.MITATION COMMISSION; ALSO MME. SARMENTO AND MRS. GRENFELL south-central African tableland. Through this plateau region the great southern affluents of the Kasai — the Wamba, Kwango, Kwilu, Luanje — cut their way in precipitous gorges of varying depth, necessitating much arduous climbing up and down the frequent water-cut ravines.^ The plateau was thus divided up into parallel ranges of flat-topped hills (sandstone formation chiefly") bearing sparse, against his allies. He induced him to bring a return present and to pay a visit. All went well : the goat and plantain were eaten. But the next morning, soon after day- break, as Kahungula was coming out of the house, smoking his big diamba pipe, he received a shot in the abdomen from the gun of one of Kanzori's men, who had been posted in hiding for the purpose. Kahungula was able to run a short distance, but he was soon caught, and his hand and head cut off.'" ' Grenfell compares several of these to the Colorado canon. - Often very red in colour. "The red sandhills of the Lushiko valley.'' (Grenfell.) THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 211 coarse herbage and scrubby trees. But the river valleys — like that of the Kwango (in the Sekeji district, especially) — were rich in tall trees and handsome forest, much draped with grey- green Usnea lichen. The water of the plateau streams was of a clear indigo tint. The cliffs of the plateau on either side of the Kwango were of white sand — disintegrated felspathic rock. On the shores of the Kwango masses of white rock protruded through the white sand — very effective in contrast with the 94. HILLS BORDERING WAMBA VALLEY deep indigo tone of the clear water. Grenfell thus describes the scenery of the Luanje River {an important affluent of the Kasai) : — " The hill we crossed on leaving the Luanje and proceeding west- wards was remarkable for its short grass and absence of scrub. It was mainly of red sand. I counted eleven distinct kinds of grass in full seed. The barbed seeds are much fewer than in the cataract region. A great number of acacia-like shrubs with hop-like flowers present gorgeous masses of yellow blossom. There are a few deep red thistle- heads and a small red star cluster on stems a foot in height. These are the only bright tints, if we except a ragged blue flower which never appears to be complete." 212 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The plateau near the crossing of the Kwango was 3,600 feet above sea-level, and would have benefited the tired Europeans with its temperate climate, had it not been that the rainy- season was in full force and the expedition was soused day and night for weeks together. Moveover, since joining forces with the Portuguese, small- pox had attacked the porters and soldiers of the expedition. Famine hovered about them as they travelled eastward from the industrious settled Baholo into war-ravaged depopulated regions long subject to Lunda and Kioko devastation. Such 95. CROSSING KWILU RIVER, LUNDA LXI'EDITIUX indigenous population as there was had become nomadic — they would settle in a likely spot for some months, building ram- shackle, temporary houses and planting quick-growing crops like manioc — then, unless they were already raided, they would move on restlessly to another site which offered virgin soil for planting and greater security of position. Some of this rest- lessness was due to the rubber trade, which had been introduced a few years before into these western Lunda countries. The rubber (native name, Nkwezi) was derived from the roots or underground branches of a species of Landolphia (probably L. T/io//onii). The natives were carrying on a reckless de- struction of the rubber plant, and never for a moment considered the advisability of replanting. THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 215 The oil palm ceased to be a feature in western Lunda above an altitude of 2,300 feet. Raphia palms of two kinds were found in moist places. A species of climbing palm [Ancis- trophylluni) was found by Grenfell in swampy localities as far south as 8° S. Lat., and at an altitude of between two or three thousand feet. The roaming habits of the " Lunda-ized " natives and their long-time possession of firearms had brought about a singular absence of beasts and birds on this sandstone plateau. The lion (according to Grenfell) is present in the valley of the Kwango River, and there are a few reed-buck, bush-buck, cephalophus, and perhaps cobus antelopes. Between the middle Kasai and the Kwango, however, it is emphatically not a big-game country, and, for its vertebrate fauna, a dis- appointing part of Africa. The Delimitation Commission penetrated as far east as the Lushiko River, an eastern affluent of the Luanje. Here they were stopped by the sullen opposition of a power- ful chief, Mona Bwamba, ruling the country between the Lushiko and the Kasai. This man was one of the northern- most representatives of the powerful Kioko race, a warlike people^ that for the last half of a century has afflicted the lands of the once united Lunda empire, especially in its western portion. There was a rumour that the officials of the Conoo State who had been established by Baron von Nimptsch, Wissmann, Grenfell, and others on the Lulua River (a parallel stream flowing to the east of the main Kasai) and also on the Luebo (between the Kasai and the Lulua) had been at war with a Kioko chieftain to chastise him for his raids on the cowardly but peaceable Luba people. It was therefore (so far as one can gleam from his diaries) found inadvisable by Grenfell to proceed further east than the Lushiko in his delimitation. He had already lost over sixty men out of the Congo State expedition from smallpox, hunger, and sickness caused by the excessively heavy rains. "We are within sixty miles of the Kasai and are beaten," he writes on March 23 1893. On the 25th of March, owing to the almost open hostility of the chief at the Lushiko ferry, they marched southwards to a Kioko village called Sha Munana. Here the Ba-kioko pestered them much by impudent thieving. One man boldly tried to walk off with Grenfell's compass stand, but was 1 Known also as the I3a-joke, Va-kiokwe, Va-chibokwe, etc. The word was probably a nickname, as in the Southern Luba dialect, Mbokwe, Chibokwe means " hyaena." 2i6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO arrested in time. If a paddle was lost out of a borrowed canoe, if one of the Europeans' dogs snapped at a native, if a Portu- guese or a Congo soldier resented an attempt at open plunder, the native head-man at once raised a clamour and insisted on extortionate ransom. One reason why the joint expedition was so disliked was the smallpox with which their porters and soldiers were in- fected, and the Ba- kioko not unnatur- ally dreaded being contaminated with this plague. As the joint expedition marched south-west and west on its re- turn towards the Kwanoo, the small- pox cases increased. On all this jour- ney, from the time of meetino- the Por- tuguese, Grenfell had been ridincr an ox. The natives between Angola and Tanganyika and over Portu- guese South-West Africa have trained oxen for centuries as ridin^ - animals. This practice was apparently intro- duced by the Portu- o'uese four centuries ago. It is surprising that the same thing has not been done in Uganda and contiguous countries, and elsewhere in tropical Africa where oxen can exist, as they are much hardier than horses, and far easier to feed. But these riding-oxen, though as a rule very good-tempered, have their prejudices. Grenfell writes on the 7th of April 1893 :— " Gigante does not like wetting his tail when he goes through a swamp, and arches it like a cat does when confronting an unfriendly 97. HUNGRY PORTERS ON THE LUNDA EXPEDITION RETURNING TO ANGOLA 98. GRENFELL RIDING AN OX, LUNDA EXPEDITION THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 219 dog. If his tail does get wet, the rider gets the benefit of it, for Gigante dries it by a few vigorous shakes right and left. If it is only clear water it does not much matter, but when passing through the mud the bull's tail becomes an effective paint-brush. When I first mounted ' Cahuca ' I was told never to wear a waterproof, because the rustling of this garment was his pet aversion, making him frantic. I regarded this advice sufficiently to take care that when wearing my waterproof I made as little noise as possible, and sundry sudden starts following an uninten- tional rustle empha- sized the need for caution. After a while, however, he got used to it — in fact, when I began to take advantageof this by shaking my rain- coat to accelerate his speed he soon lost his fear. At first a slight shake was more ef- fective than a stroke with the whip, but now if I shake it with both hands he does not care a bit." Occasionally, hoM^ever, these oxen were seized with fits of obsti- nacy, and would not cross swamps or rivers. In such cases the worn-out men of the expedi- tion were obliged to kill them and brinof them across as beef. As to the mules of the expedition, they expected to be carried in hammocks whenever they got stuck in the mud, and would actually "malinger" in order to have themselves thus relieved. After crossing the Kwilu to return westwards the expedition had to wade through swamp after swamp, besides being per- petually wetted through by the heavy rain, Grenfell tried riding his ox in football breeches so that he might get off and walk through the mud and water with bare legs, but this resulted in his limbs being cut and scratched by the sharp-edged grass- blades or their barbed seeds. Meantime, native wars breaking 99.1 GRENFELL'S NATIVE ATTENDANTS ON THE LUNDA EXPEDITION 220 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO out again in front of them, coupled with the terrible lack of food in the northern part of the Lunda country, decided Gren- fell (whose expedition was being decimated with smallpox) to take a more southerly route and get into regions more under the control of the Portuguese. In this way, after sending his Congo carriers and some of the sick men northwards by the now established route along the Kwango to Stanley Pool, he himself started off with the Belgian and Portucruese officers for the Kwanza River and St. Paul de Loanda, which place he reached on the i6th of June 1893, performing part of the journey by the new Royal African railway. CHAPTER XII MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES AFTER returning from the Lunda expedition, Grenfell / \ resumed his work for the Baptist Mission on the Upper A. \^ Congo and settled once more at Bolobo. The King of the Belgians presented him with the Royal Order of the Lion (Commander) and gave him the insignia lOI. THE GRAVE OF THK REV. F. R. ORAM, A l;Al■ll.■^l M l>.-^lu.\ ARV, AT BOPOTO, NORTHERN CONGO set in diamonds. The late Kino- of Portugal marked his appreciation of Grenfell's work and of his thoroughly friendly relations with the Portuguese Commissioners by the bestowal of a similar decoration. Between his return to Bolobo in the early summer of 1893 and the year 1900 he remained at work on the Upper Congo. 221 222 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Thus, when he visited England in May 1900 he had not been in Europe for nearly ten years. From June 1893 to May 1900, he applied himself to occasional exploration, and at intervals to surveying and mapping the main Congo stream, as well as some of its northern affluents ; and his researches in these directions will be dealt with in the succeeding chapters. It might, however, be interesting at this point to take stock of the trials, troubles, 102. REV. ALBERT WHERRETT S GRAVE AT YAKUSU, STANLEY FALLS joys, excitements, daily work, and touring episodes incidental to the life of Baptist missionaries on the Congo during the last twenty years. Similar experiences have, of course, occurred to other propagandists. Between 1879 and 1900 twenty-eight men missionaries and eight women — thirty-six in all — of the B.M.S., died on the Congo, or shortly after leaving that country. From 1900 to 1907 ten have died (seven men, three women). These deaths in- clude, besides that of Grenfell, his distinguished colleague Dr. Holman Bentley [whose death, though it occurred at Bristol from a malady of the chest, must be ascribed to the Congo MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 223 climate], and another notable philologist, the Rev. W. H. Stapleton/ The number of men (92) and women (59) mission- aries who have served on the Congo from the definite com- mencement of the Mission in 1879 down to the present day is 153. The death-roll therefore represents nearly 33 per cent. The heaviest losses occurred between 1883 and 1887, and were no doubt connected with the founding of new stations, the clearing of new ground, and the heavy transport work of steamers and boats in sections [together with other goods] 103. REV. T. J. COMBER AT ARTHINGTON, STANLEY POOL past the cataracts of the Congo in the days before the railway was built. Since 1900 there has been a marked falling-off in the death-rate, no doubt owinor to a better understandino- of African hygiene and the realization of the mosquito theory. Now that Grenfell, Comber, Bentley, and Stapleton are dead, the veterans of the Mission still at work on the Congo are J. H. Weeks, with a long record of 1881 to 1907 (and no doubt beyond) ; Thomas Lewis, well known for his geo- graphical explorations of the western Congo, who began his service at the Cameroons in 1883 ; G. R. R. Cameron (1884), ' Stapleton died in England in Decemljer 1906, leaving some very remarkable philological studies unfinished. 224 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO A. E. Scrivener (1886), John Pinnock (1887), J. A. Clark (1889), William Forfeitt and Lawson Forfeitt (1889), and J. Whitehead (1890) ; besides R. H. C. Graham (1886) and H. Ross Phillips (1886), who have served chiefly in Portuguese Congo. Other names worthy of special record (besides those already mentioned) are Mr. J. Howell (1896), Mrs. Thomas Lewis (1883, Cameroons), Mrs. Lawson Forfeitt ( 1894), Mrs. R. H. C. Graham (1890), Mrs. William Forfeitt (1893), Mrs. Holman Bentley (1886 : returned 1904), R. V. Glennie (1889-96), Kenred Smith (1896), and H. Sutton Smith (1899). Several of these have made contributions to geographical research and discovery or to philological studies. The Comber family may be said to have given their lives to the Congo. First of all Thomas Comber and his wife, then Dr. Sydney Comber and Percy Comber, the former after one year of residence, the latter after seven, besides the w'ife of the last-named, who predeceased her husband. A sister of the Combers, Mrs. Wright- Hay, died at the Cameroons after several years' work in that district. It is doubtful whether any missionary, or any European for the matter of that, ever gained the affection and confidence of recalcitrant natives so thoroughly as Thomas and Percy Comber. Their names and personalities will long be remembered at San Salvador, and in the cataract region, where they mostly worked. The majority of these deaths were from black-w^ater fever, or fever of the ordinary malarial type. Some, however, were caused by dysentery. Dysentery is a disease which under or- dinary circumstances Europeans ought to be able to avoid if they realize the danger of drinking unboiled and unfiltered water [though the disease seems sometimes communicable by some other vehicle than water]. The common type of malarial fever may be warded off to some extent by extreme precautions against mosquitoes. Black-water fever is as yet an unsolved mystery, as it so often occurs in regions where there are no mosquitoes of any kind [districts of great altitude, for example], and attacks persons who have been removed from a mosquito - haunted country for several months : ^ nor are all the secrets of simple malarial fever solved and explained, though the mosquito theory accounts for much. Deaths would often occur with startlino- suddenness. Inci- o ' Just as it may suddenly break out in England or in some other temperate climate. The theory most in fa\our now is that it is due to an accumulation of ordinary malarial bacilli in the blood, and is more often than not precipitated by some sudden lowering of vitality, due either to a severe mental shock or a period of intense anxiety, or to a sudden chill. MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 225 dents like this would happen in the 'eighties. A missionary, J. W. Hartley, together with two English engineers, left Under- hill on the Lower Congo in February 1884 to walk up-country to Manyanga. The eno'ineers were specially engaged to re- construct the Peace. On the road they were overtaken by a storm of rain. Their bundles of bedding were wrapped in i n d i a ru b b e r sheets, but badly fastened, so that the blankets became wet. It was forgotten to dry these during the sunshine of the next morn- ing. All three men, sleeping under wet blan- kets, developed malarial fever and died in two or three days. Donald Mac- millan, a High- lander of the H e b r i d e s , reached Under- bill on Decem- ber 24 1884, and died on March 9 1885 after two or three days of fever. Andrew Cruickshank was a year in the country between 1884 and 1885, but died suddenly at Wathen, in the cataract region, of black- water fever. Alexander Cowe died at San Salvador and W. F. Cottingham at Underbill after only a few months or weeks in the country, I. — Q 104. kEV. John I'lNNOCK AND HLS FAMILY Mr. Pinnock is a West Indian, and son of the Rev. J. Pinnock, a pioneer in the Cameroons. Mr. Pinnock himself served for some years in the Cameroons. 226 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Another year of sad losses was 1887. Shindler, Darling, Biggs, Whitley, Miss Martha Spearing, and the celebrated Thomas Comber all died in that year. It is to be noted that the greater number of deaths occurred in the cataract region of the Congo and in the not far distant district of San Salvador. Much the same fact was noteworthy in regard to the losses from fever sustained by Stanley's expedition in founding the Congo Free State between 1879 and 1884. Stanley's station of Vivi, on a hill above the Congo, the Livingstone Inland Mission station at Palabala (at an altitude of between two and three thousand feet above sea- level perhaps), the hills round about Manyanga, and on the western side of Stanley Pool : all these regions proved to be deadlier than the vast, flat, swampy regions of the inner Congo basin. Somewhat similar has been the experience of Euro- peans in Nyasaland. The unhealthiest parts of that country have not necessarily been flat, marshy regions, but the prox- imity of sun-heated rocks and stones, such as the promontory of Livingstonia, and the Universities' Mission island of Likoma. Here is an example, culled from Bentley, of the way in which a strong, healthy person can suddenly collapse in Africa. A. D. Slade, a middle-aged man of fine physique, "a splendid all-round man." He caught a chill, developed black- water fever, and died after a short illness, having been only eight months on the Congo. Another frequent cause of death at stations like Underbill on the lower river would be the fatal sea-breeze, which was once so mistakenly styled "the doctor" on the West Coast of Africa. The inexperienced European, after grilling during a day of broiling heat in a region where the sun's rays are caught as in a trap and refracted from the red rocks, so that at four in the afternoon there may be a shade temperature of 105°; towards evening sits gasping with delight on the verandah as the breeze from the Atlantic comes sweeping a hundred miles and more up the channel of the Congo, and plays about his heated body with its delicious coolness. Before dinner-time that man has sustained a severe chill, and unless he has taken measures to check it and to restore the temperature and the vitality he is certain to be seized soon afterwards by a severe attack of fever. Grenfell himself, in one of the rare passages dealing with his own health, says that after nineteen years' life on the Congo his digestion was well-nigh ruined, that he felt an old man at MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 227 fifty, could scarcely assimilate sometimes the simplest forms of food, and further injured himself by drinking too much tea. The man who would invent a real stimulant which was not a poison and was not followed by a dangerous reaction would indeed be a great benefactor of the "African" (whether white or black). Tea and coffee are perhaps the least hurtful ; but it is often very difficult to get good coffee in Africa (strange to say), and cocoa tends to biliousness. Alcohol in any and every Uiiderhlll n'..^I-S. Ta^e Station). Londe (Swedish Mission's Base Station). 105. THE IsnSSION ST.\TIONS OF NEW UNDERBILL AND LONDE ON THE LOWER CONGO, AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CATARACT REGION, NEAR M.ATADI form — no matter what may be written to the contrary — is dangerous to the health in an African climate, always poisonous, more or less, because the reaction from its effects is — more or less — a temporary depression of vitality. General health of course depends largely on good food and good cooking, and married missionaries consequently stand the climate far better than bachelors. Whilst they are at work in the school or the field there is some one at home seeing- to the preparation of a wholesome meal. Amongst the officials of the Congo Independent State and the traders, those whose means permitted them to obtain good food stood the climate better than others not so fortunate. 228 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Those who brought their wives with them from Europe stood it best of all. So far as the natives were concerned, there was no long- continued virulent hostility to daunt the missionary in these pioneering days. Only one was ever wounded by a native, and that was Comber ; there were a few narrow escapes from poisoned arrows or spears aimed by excited savages to whom the white man appeared as an enemy. Not being given un- duly to the pleasures of the chase, the missionaries seldom ran the risk of being gored by buffaloes or trampled by elephants. Their chief danger from wild animals lay in the direction of hippopotami and crocodiles.^ As regards the crocodiles, in the earlier days before these reptiles had realized the potency of European firearms, mis- sionaries cruising about Stanley Pool or the Upper Congo in small boats or canoes were frequently objects of attack. Bentley describes in vivid language how they would see a log drifting towards them, aimlessly, as it seemed, and suddenly the log would turn into an enormous crocodile rushing at the canoe with undisguised ferocity, only to be warded off at the very last moment by a bullet through his skull. Hippo- potami were more dangerous than crocodiles. They charged the boat or the canoe relentlessly, and were long in acquiring a wholesome awe of the rifle-bullet. The whirliaicr of time brought about a curious revenge on the hippopotamus who in the early 'eighties made himself so dangerous to river travellers. The chronic state of famine o along the south coast of Stanley Pool caused the representa- tives of Bishop Taylor's Mission to devote their spare time to hippo shooting. The meat was succulent and nourishing, and besides supplying the Europeans with food, could be dried and exchanored with natives dwellino- inland for their vegetable produce. After Bishop Taylor's Mission was dissolved and its members joined other bodies and left the unpromising banks of Stanley Pool, the hippo shooting was taken up by the State, and Captain Hinde and other officers on their way to the Arab War in 1890-3 were often required to spend their time when halting at Stanley Pool in shooting hippos for the nourishment of the stations, ' It IS remarkable how in all books of travel relating to Africa and the experi- ences of all travelled " Africans," one hears next to nothing of dangers from poisonous snakes or of deaths from that cause, though there are in the Congo region at least seven examples of viperine and cobra snakes whose venom is fatal. MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES But missionaries and all other Europeans on the Congo would probably reckon as trivial the risks from crocodilian ferocity or hippopotamine malice (still more so, the one chance in ten thousand of being killed by snake, elephant, leopard, or buffalo), compared with the intolerable nuisance, discomfort, and danger caused by insects in Congo life. There are the very numerous species of blood-sucking gnat ("mosquito"), including the malaria-transmitting Anophelines. Mosquitoes are — or were at one time — omnipresent in most Io6. A HOUSE OF THE B.M.S. AT LUKOLELA, WESTERN EQUATORIAL CONGO parts of the Congo basin below 3,000 feet, though worse in some places than in others (Bolobo and Lukolela were extremely bad). Their abundance is no doubt seasonal : they are less obvious in the short dry season, and are absent on the plateaux away from watercourses or groves. Clearing the grass and scrub is the best method of driving them away. But they re- main nevertheless the leading pest of Congo life {vide p. 941). There is a tsetse fly — Glossina palpalis — the probe of which occasions a temporary smart, but which we now know as one of the deadliest enemies of humanity, the agent for introducing into the human system the trypanosome which, when it reaches the spinal marrow and the brain, causes "sleeping sickness." 230 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO There are the sand-flies or midges {Culicoides or Cerato- pogoii F) — found also, it is true, in temperate regions, but par- ticularly hard to bear in some [:>arts of the Congo. A cloud of these almost invisible little pests may sweep in through the windows of a riverside bungalow, penetrate the ordinary mesh of a mosquito-curtain, and leave the wretched sleeper tingling all over face and arms, blotched and swollen as with some eruptive fever. They attack one under the shade of trees in some cool glen ; they haunt the verandah at the brief sunset hour of pleasant relaxation. There are also the stunted little flies [Sinmlium danmosiim, most appropriately named !), much bigger than the midge, with short black bodies (about one-eiohth of an inch long), that settle on the hand and leave beads of blood at everv with- drawal of the sharp pro- boscis, injecting also some venom which lono- remains to irritate and smart.^ There are on or near the water huoe o hippo flies with green eyes and tawny bodies that drive through clothes and skin a veritable stiletto; other flies which with their ovipositors deposit an egg in the wound that grows into a grub and will only issue through its self-made abscess ; house-flies in myriads, wherever cattle are bred — odious with their stupid intrusiveness; jiggers or burrowing fleas; preda- tory bloodthirsty " driver " ants, minute brown ants that want to substitute themselves for your sugar and biscuits, large ants that stink profoundly, small black ants intent on devouring- natural- history specimens ; cockroaches two inches long ; locusts four inches long;'- mason wasps which mess every prominent article ' Grenfell mentions that the Teke name of this ily is EJiuna ; pi. Bihuna. - The illustration on page 233 of a locust devouring a mouse [from specimens now in the British Museum] represents one of these Congo locusts. This insect was actually picked up by the Rev. M. H. Reid in the act of devouring a mouse. It was brought home by the Re\-. Lawson Forfeitt, and has been identified as Cyrtacanthacris rubella [the mouse is a species of Lcggada\. The locust had apparently eaten away much of the mouse's ear. For this type of locust to eat anything but vegetable food is very exceptional, but Mr. Forfeitt has observed that they de\ our spiders when they have exhausted the herbage. I08. LEOPARD KILLED ON UPPER CONGO BY REV. W. H. STAPLETON (Mr. Stapleton is in left-hand corner of picture.) MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 233 of furniture with their clay nests containing" a grub and a half- dead spider ; grey, glistening wasps with almost deadly sting ; beetles that bur- row into the raf- ters and reduce them to dust ; caterpillars that produce a skin disease by slight- est contact with their poisonous hairs ; aromatic bugs, shrieking locustids, pounc- ing crickets of hideous aspect, and mantises with long necks and fat bellies which after having unneces- sarily flown from the lamp on to your neck will nip the timid finger advancing- to dis- lodge them. Amongst other discomforts in boat or steamer travelling on the Congo might be a plague of may-flies {^E p heme rid CE^ that rose out of the water after sunset and covered the deck of the vessel, es- pecially making for the lamps, which would be simply coated with their dead bodies. These may- flies if falling into soup or food gave it a nasty aromatic taste. ^ 109. LOCUST DEVOURING A MOUSE ' On the other hand, neither Grenfell nor any other traveller on the Congo (including the present writer) seems to have observed there the minute gnat known 234 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO These were perhaps the real terrors of the animal world on the Congo, these tiny insect pests : not the crocodile, who has all the fascination of an antediluvian monster ; not the leopard, buffalo, elephant, or snake, who did not interfere with you if you did not call them to order; nor even the unwieldy, wrathful hippo, so easy to shoot and so touchingly reminiscent of the Pliocene. But Nature had not exhausted her thrills and dangers with what was hostile in life-clothed-with-matter, from cannibal man to deadly trypano- some, and from ptomaine germ to Strophantlitis ar- row poison : there w^ere the elemental forces to be dreaded, suffered, braved, evaded. Broiling sunshine, brinorino" sunstroke and paralysis ; de- luging rain — soak- ing, chilling, kill- ing; tornadoes that blew the house down and crushed its occupant with uprooted trees ; no. A FLASH OF LIGH INING ON THE UPPER CONGO lightning that Stunned, burnt, or slew outright — lightning that destroyed in an hour's combus- tion the patient labour of many hands for many months. Even occasionally there were hail-storms with pelting, bruising ice- bullets, the size of pigeons' eggs. Or there came floods, which destroyed all crops and gardens and decimated tribes of willing listeners with famine and disease ; droughts which for nine months made agriculture impossible and blasted the primeval forests and the palm groves, with the breath of the Sahara in- on Lake Nyasa as the kungu, which rises from the water in immense clouds of a brownish tint that look like a low fog in the distance. This fly is found abundantly on Lake Nyasa, possibly on I'anganyika, and certainly on Lake \'ictoria Nyanza. When a cloud of these kungu gnats sweep across a vessel everything is thickly coated with millions of their little bodies, scarcely larger than a pin's head (they are made into cakes and eaten greedily by the negroes). It would be interesting to learn that they have also been observed on the great waters of the Congo basin. If they are absent, it is curious that their range should be limited to the Great Lakes on the eastern edge of the Congo basin. MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 237 truding on a climate used for many a cycle to perpetual moisture ; winds that under a vertical sun — and most un- wontedly — blew chilly with the dank cold of an English November, and so sent men and women to death's door with pneumonia ; stillnesses, more awful than any tornado in the dark and clammy heat of the tropical night, when some poor fluttering invalid lay gasping for breath and fearing that the dawn with its stirrino- of the air might come too late. Some sturdy missionary (or trader or administrator) will read this and say, " Bosh! I lived (so many) years on the Congo, 112. MISSIONARY GOING ON TOUR OF INSPECTION IN HOUSE-BOAT, UPPER CONGO and was never scared by lightning or frightened of heat- apoplexy." It may be so. Yet nearly every incident in this catalogue of terrors is borrowed from the records of men like Livingstone, Stanley, Grenfell, Bentley, and Hinde, no one of whom would be deemed a weakling or over-impressionable. But he would be right in maintaining that missionary life stood at a high level of cheerfulness. The schools, the garden, the brickyard ; the blacksmith's shop, laundry, sawpit,' printing- press, dispensary, and farm ; the church — temporary, a frail structure of mats and grass, or the triumphant outcome of three years' breathless toil, designed, decorated, finished by the man who taught the native helpers how to make and bake 238 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the bricks, how to saw and shape the timbers, forge and apply the iron clamps, affix the tiles or bolt the corrugated iron ; the church, in any case the shrine of indefinable hopes in most men's hearts, and to the European exile fifty times dearer, because its lamps and seats and reading-desks, its altar or com- munion-table, remind him not of Africa, but of home.^ These were the objects that arrested the missionary's thoughts and kept him from despondency or dullness. Alter- nating with the daily round of varied work would come episodes of travel : a journey on foot for a hundred miles or so, or a voyage of discovery by canoe or steamer, revealing new- people, new hopes, new scenery, new languages, new difficulties to be met and surmounted. There is a good deal that is prosaic about African travel, but every now and then the diary of Grenfell reveals a purple patch. Here is one, on a journey with his daughter ' in 1898 : — " By reason of the shallowness of the river it took us nearly four hours to go from Bunga to Lokolela, but the journey was enlivened by the sight of elephants at two points of the run. One of our men took a running shot at the first, which did not do more than startle it. The second lot of elephants were far enough off to feel safe, and were leisurely putting a little greater distance between us. This being Patty's first view of elephants at home, she wanted to see them run ; so we blew an emphatic shriek on the steam whistle, and the way those elephants threw up their trunks, flapped their great ears, and bounded off was a sight to see." Football on the sands : — " Where there are villages there are mostly rocky reefs to be found, and several of these being en evidence, and as another storm was gathering, it behoved us to seek a sheltered anchorage. The storm coming mainly from the east, we got in between two rows of islands running north and south, and anchored on the tail end of a sandbank, which was some three feet out of the water, and constituted a sort of inner island, half blocking the channel. The storm that threatened having veered off, the men were sent away in the canoe to replenish our stock of fuel, and the boys not required for that service took the opportunity to have a game of football. This was kept up with great enthusiasm till it was altogether too dark to see, the boys going in for 1 The Christian rehgion is still so very " Caucasian'' in its ideals and mental pic- tures. Nlemvo, a noted Kongo convert and teacher, said to Grenfell, after e.xamining a picture of the Day of Judgment on conventional lines, " That picture lie ! No black man there." - Patience, Grenfell's eldest daughter, was a young woman of charming person- ality, who was born on the Congo, educated in England and at Brussels, and who returned to the Congo as a teacher in 1897. She died of haMiiaturic fever in 1899, while journeying on the Peace. 113. PATIENCE GRENl'ELL AND HER SCHOOL CHILDREN AT YAKUSU MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 241 several scrimmages on their own particular lines. As no one wore boots, the kicking was not of the full-bodied type we see at home, but the play with the hands was particularly smart and effective. The darkness had only fallen long enough for the camp fires on the sand to be well alight when the storm that had veered off came on us from the north, sweeping down the channel as though it would have blown us out of it. But though we encountered the full force of the wind, we lay in quiet water, protected by the sandbank. The sparks from the fires and the sand blew on board in very appreciable quantities, the former making quite a grand display of fireworks as they blew up from windward. By midnight all was quiet again, and we went to bed, the tremendous downpour of rain having dispelled any fear of damage from the sparks." Appreciations of scenery : — " Bolobo, November 26 i88g. Although the river has lost all the brilliant contrast of yellow sand with the dark waters and luxuriant foliage, yet at this season the hills are gloriously verdure-clad, and very different from the bare brown of the low-water season. The various- tinted leaves now show their brilliant hues to perfection, and higher up the river, on the iron-stone land the early leaves of many trees are golden-brown or lurid red, and in the rays of the sun suggest flaming forests and make a scene one could never forget. The cotton trees (bombax) that two months since threw out their bare arms like giant skeletons far above the heads of their neighbours have shed their tiny blossoms like pantomime snowstorms, and this hoary raiment has given place to the glorious garb of youthful spring. It is all very beautiful, and our hearts go forth to Him who made it. "The water is rising rapidly over the surface of the land. It has been one of the modifying effects in moulding the landscape, for the water percolating through the ground and finding an exit at the foot of the hills has caused perpendicular landslips, and in many cases has eaten fantastic caves and ravines right into the very heart of the hills. In some cases the result is as though a volcano had burst and blown a section of the cone clear away ; but the water has done it all — first of all caused the sand to slip, and afterwards has carried it away to the rapidly flowing Congo and thence to the Atlantic. It seems impossible that the white, perpendicular cliffs so characteristic of this region (the western Upper Congo) can be of sand ; but there is just sufficient aluminium in the sand to make the particles cohere so long as they are dry." The Congo spring time : — "26th of December 1888 (near Bolobo). Wondrously variegated trees, crimson tipped with gold — banks lined with some trees of vivid green leaf, while the foliage of others is lurid masses of red, shading off into yellow, and suggesting very vividly long lines of fire. The creepers too are in full bloom : convolvuli of graceful shape and beautiful colour, others being sweet-scented flowers that remind one of jasmine and honey- suckle. The white-leaved Mussoinda, and the red-berried, ever-abounding I. — R 242 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO "Christmas" shrub that will soon provide fruits for the birds, also enlivened the banks. ... Great bombax trees, in their white and fluffy, snowy vesture (blossoms) are frequent, and their fiery-headed neigh- bours are the more striking by reason of the contrast." The lavish bloom of the Crinuni lilies — white with streaks of pink and green on tlie outer aspect of the petals — growing in a hundred clumps in some swampy flat of thick, fine, emerald grass ; the white or the scarlet sepals (like Puinsettia tufts) of the various Miissa-nda shrubs, o-leaminor in the dark forest growth overhand- 114. crixi:m lilies of the upper coxgo ing the Kwango River ; the trailing bushes of the Canioensia maxima aniid the Qaunt boulders or limestone cracjs of the Cataract region — the flowers large, creamy-white, orange- centred, bronze-edged round the crinkled petals, and exhaling the most perfect scent of cloves . . . these are all pictures called up before my mental vision by the notes of Grenfell. Or a flight of pelicans across the blue mirror of the Kasai ; snow- white ibises with inky plumes and inky heads and necks hunting for frogs in the Baloi swamps among the green conferv(2 of the rising river ; white herons roosting "like a snowfall," tier above tier, on the river-fronting forest in the quiet creeks of the northern Congo ; the flights of huge and monstrous-ugly fruit- MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 243 bats, in daylight, across the Lukenye River, passing" with dis- cordant cries from fruit tree to fruit tree, " the Devil's notion of a bird " (as another traveller describes them). The yellow-red buffaloes coming down to drink at sunset on the sandy bays of Lake Leopold ; the bush-pigs with their orange-chestnut hair touched up and enhanced by white or black manes and tufts and patches, surprised on the shore as the steamer rounds a promontory ; black and white scapulated crows, brown kites, white and black (pink-faced) fishing vultures ; the tame marabou stork that will swallow a kitten, all but the tip of its tail, and submit to the kitten being drao-oed back alive from its capacious crop ; the habits of the lung-fish, which can live in dry mud as well as in water' — these are some of the pictures seen and enjoyed by mission- aries, not one of whom ever recorded a dull day or a bored feeling in his diary. They were too busy to be bored. The women mission- aries had their sewing classes, their laundries (with washer- men as well as washerwomen), their cooking lessons, and their reading classes for girls. They were sensible enough to take up native food products and teach the children and married women how to prepare them by better, cleaner methods, how to cook them appetizingly. There were the schools for babies, sharp children, hulking boys, and grown women. And the individuality of each scholar — no sameness in these wild natures — some were affectionate, grateful as dogs, passionately devoted to the kind mistress ; some were sulky and might perhaps slumber and sulk unapprecia- tively for years until a chance incident touched and revealed the soul. 115. CAMOK.NSIA MAXIMA ' Here is one of Grenfell's many natural-history notes : " The Protopterus or lung-fish (known at Stanley Pool as njoiitbo) digs its hole in muddy ground, and makes several avenues leading away from the central cavity which serve as different lines of retreat. As the water falls it deepens its hole, but does not 'hibernate,' as is reported of it." 244 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " Losere sold a woman some two months ago, but kept her child, a little girl of two years. Now that the little one has dysentery he threatens to throw her into the river. Phi-ila, of all the girls, was moved to beg us to ask for the little child. In five minutes the matter was all arranged, and Phi-ila is nurse and foster-mother ... so happy ! . . ." A few days later : " The poor child died . . . Phi-ila is dis- consolate." An incident like this is recorded with zest : for much of the mission teaching is aimed at enforcing the rights of women: — " One of the mission girls at Stanley Falls was sold to three or four different men one after the other, but refused to be the wife of any- body who could not read and write like herself. She was beaten, put 1 1 6. PROTOPTERUS DOLLOI, THE LUNG-FISH OF THE UPPER CONGO in the stocks, and tied up several times, but was absolute mistress of the situation as far as getting married was concerned, and the money had to be returned. Now she is married to the lad of her choice. She said she was not going to be one of a crowd ; she wanted a husband of her own." On the 23rd of December 1896 Grenfell notes that the first Bolobo girl has put on European clothes and is going to form part of the household of a missionary's wife. At the close of 1 896 he writes : — "There are not lacking signs that fill us with hope for the future. The chiefs no longer exercise their claim of life and death, and are losing their hold. They are evidently having a bad time of it with some of the young sparks in the town. To-day the girls are beginning to act independently. They see the mission boys and girls marrying as they wish, and do not want to marry the oldest man in their homes." MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES A cry from the heart of a much-beaten wife ! — 245 " I ith of August 1894." (Bolobo for five years has been a prey to constant fighting between chief and chief, together with incessant private vcndette.) " Mumbele badly wounded in the face. His wife, Dilongo, says, ' Oh that he might die ! ' I am afraid that there are a great many whose hearts eclio the same sentiment. Only yes- terday one of the neighbouring chiefs said to us, 'Mum- bele? He will die one of these days, and won't know death is coming.' " " 28th of January 1894. Chief Ngoie has left this evening for Stanley Pool. The slave he gave Bo- nongo has gone with him, and taken ten brass rods belonging to Bonongo's mother. Great outcry! Bihima (another wife of Ngoie) was in great trouble. She had just had a flogging on ac- count of being twenty brass rods short in her account (Ngoie said). She sent to Patience ^ to borrow the rods so that she might settle with her lord and master. She lost half of one of her , ., . 117. THE MISSION LAUNDRY MAN, BOPOTO ears a while ago in a ' ' similar difficulty with the said lord and master." In 1894 Grenfell notes that the local medicine-men in the vicinity of a Baptist mission station are beginning to fear to attribute every death to w^itchcraft, and now often bring it in as mambu manzambi=?Sh\x of God. He notes else- where that in the old style the medicine-man would be con- sulted immediately after the death and possibly burial as to the cause. He would then dig: a hole over the grrave and make- 1 Mrs. Grenfell. ?46 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO believe to see the object that caused the death and shoot it, or else get into the hole and thrash all round it with a stick which had been previously smeared with the blood of a fowl's head concealed about his person for the purpose. He then waves the blood-stained stick to show that if he has not actually killed the " ndoki " he has at any rate badly wounded it. T he women- missionaries of this and other missions, Protestant and Catholic, have taken a special and successful interest in hospital and dis- pensary work, in I I^SS^H^iHPV^ ^ ^^"^ rescuing and train- ijH i^^^'Tl'*''' i ^1 '-^^ orphans, and ' * ^ . ^ ' ...... attempting to check the terrible mortality among the native children. They are gradually instructing the mothers on the proper feeding of infants and on reasonable reme- dies for childish complaints — na- tive notions of such medical treat- ment being drastic to the decree of child murder.^ Miss Lily de Hailes and Mrs. William Forfeitt, Mrs. White- head, Mrs. Clark, and Mrs. Howell have been particularly successful in this work amonost the women and children of the 1 1 8. A SEWING CLASS AT BOPOTO ' "Women on the Upper Congo stuff three or four days' old infants with boluses of boiled manioc pulp (kwanga)." " Hartsock tells of his watching a mother wash her infant — he counted 107 dips under the surface of the river, another day 48 dips. Just as the poor creature is about to howl it is soused under water." " Scrivener tells me he saw the mothers keep their babies quiet at Banza Manteka by pouring water over their heads and giving them a regular douche. They brought water to the chapel for that purpose." (Grenfell's Diary.) MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES western and northern Congo, and have appreciably checked depopulation by saving many an unfortunate babe, starved or diseased, orphaned or abandoned. The men and women of the Mission met on common ground and in merry emulation in the schools, the dispensaries and the garden. But whilst the women's special province was the teaching of domestic arts, the men dealt separately with industries more appropriate to the male sex — printing, the 119. MRS. GRENFELL'S SEWING CLASS, BOLOBO blacksmith's shop, brick- and tile-making, timber-cutting, cabinet-making, and horticulture.^ As in Uganda, so in the regions of the Upper Congo the natives are eager to acquire the art of writing ; they are quick to realize the importance of this means of communication be- tween distant friends and comrades. " Monsembi boys learning to write are very desirous of letting their friends know they understand the mystic signs on paper and how to make them, and take every occasion to send messages chalked on chips of timber instead of conveying them verbally. One boy said to his master, ' I am going into the town to-day ^ For years Messrs. Sutton, of Reading, have supplied the Baptist Mission gratuitously with large consignments of vegetable and flower seeds suited to the tropics and these have thus found their way into native horticulture on the Congo. 248 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO to a big palaver. I shall not be able to hear the bell because of the noise we shall make, but if you send for me I will come ; only do not send a boy with a message: let him bring a little note ! ' " (Grenfell.) I 20. "HOW THEY LOOK WHEN THEY COME FIRST TO THE MISSION" Many books — educational, religious, linofuistic — have been printed and bound by natives of Congoland at the presses of the Baptist Mission, at those likewise of the other Protestant and Catholic mission stations, and a good deal of the official printing of the State is carried out by mission - trained men. At the Antwerp Exhibition of 1895 the Baptist Mission was well represented with printing and bookbinding exhibits and with trained artisans from the Conoo. The exhibition of the skill of these mission - trained operatives was not well re- Socialists, who issued a pamphlet ceived by the Belgian complaining that the Congo State was training " dirty niggers to take the bread out of our mouths." Weddino- feasts of their scholars or adherents, athletic sports, concerts, picnics, shooting- expeditions (when the nuisance of plantation-destroy- ing elephants, hip- pos, bush - pigs, and buftaloes re- quired abatement, or terrorizing leopards or crocodiles pro- voked reprisals), and the visits of other missionaries of different 121. "after six months" MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES faiths and sects ;^ all these breaks in what might have be- come a monotony of well-doing saved mission life from the danger of insipidity. But in the doings of the natives around them there was quite sufficient excitement — at any rate from 1883 to 1900 — to avert stagnation in the atmosphere of reliofious and secular instruction. Here are some extracts from Grenfell's diary to illustrate the "alarums and excur- 122. THE GARDEN OF A B.M.S. STATION, UPPER CONGO sions " in the neighbourhood of a mission station in the old unruly days. 1 "22nd of January 1894 (Bolobo). Antoittctte (eight days from the Pool) called on her way to Zongo Rapids (Miibangi), having on board Bishop Augouard. He is going thither with four missionaries to found a station. Part of the explorer Monteil's expedition is on board. A noticeable feature in their outfit consists of sectional boats of aluminium, the sections having axles and wheels so that they may fulfil the service of waggons. The Bishop was very gracious, and referred to the early days when we met (thirteen years ago) on the Mpozo, and to the changes that have taken place since that time. He tells me that the choir of his cathedral has been consecrated, and that the stained-glass windows presented by the Prince de Croy and Mr. Gres- hoff are very effective. The height of the bell turret is twenty metres." (Grenfell.) On another occasion we find Grenfell and the Peace coming to the rescue of Bishop Augouard's party when the Bishop's steamer Lcoji XIII had broken down, and the French Mission sending to their Baptist colleagues a magnificent present of carved ivories in acknowledgment of the friendly help afforded by the Peace. I find in the records of the Baptist Mission no record of any but pleasant relations with the French and Belgian Catholics on the Upper Congo. The old-fashioned nineteenth- century spitefulness between different sections of the Christian Church does not seem to have penetrated east of Stanley Pool or west of Tanganyika. 250 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO He writes in i8go: — " Lots of humbugging all round " (that is to say, in reference to inquiries as to people being killed at burial ceremonies). " They cordially despise our powers of observation, and think we are easily hoodwinked. Stanley was quite right when he said that the black man despises the white, thinks him rich and strong, very ' funny,' but withal a fool to be worked." " Bolobo, 5th of May 1894. Our new home is being built on the Mandeln boundary between the Ngoie and Bobangi towns. It has been 123. KRICK-MAKERS AT I5.M.S. STATION, VAKUSU the custom when making laws between these two sections to contribute to the cost of a slave, then to break his arms and legs, and burj^ him up to his neck by way of putting a seal to the new law. On digging a hole for one of the posts of our new house, we came across one of these skeletons in its vertical position. "6th of May 1894. Baptismal service in Bolobo. ]\Iafuta, Risasi, Fataki, and Nga Makala joined the Church. Town in considerable excitement about the disappearance of Ekila (the wife of a man just dead). Part say that she has been buried with her dead husband yesterday. Others say she has run away. It transpired this evening that she is in hiding with one of Ngoie's wives. " 9th of May. More seeking for Ekila. The corpse is still unburied. MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 251 Bokatula ya Manga demanded her from Lokumo this morning. Lokumo said, ' Your man died in my house. You took his body away, and all the women went to cry. Have I been to take your woman ? ' Bokatula proceeded to Ngoie's place, and said, ' I have come for Ekila.' 'Have I taken Ekila?' 'If you don't hand her over there will be a fight.' ' I am ready,' said Ngoie ; ' let's go out to the erobie (grass land) and settle it' " I am told the corpse is very ' high.' One poor slave has already been killed, a man bought from the back (Batende). Ekotobongo said many times before he died, ' Mind, when I go, that Ekila is not left behind. If she is not buried with me I will come and haunt you.' His friends are therefore afraid of Ekotobongo's ghost, and Ngoie, Lokumo, and others are afraid of ' Bula Matadi.' ... I have learnt that Ekoto- 124. PORTUGUESE ROMAN CATHOLIC MlbhlOX STATION, iMALANJE, PORTUGUESE CONGO bongo is now buried in the bush, the townspeople being afraid to have him for a near neighbour, so they have not put him as usual under the floor of his house. Eyoka says it is burying for the pigs. Whether that refers to the manner of it, or that when the rain comes the pigs will find the place and devour the corpse, I do not know. . . ." "March 11 1895. J- H. tells me of a ghost story at Lulongo. A certain woman slave had been killed, and her spirit haunted the path by the place where she was buried. She would follow people and call after them. ' I know what is the matter,' said one, ' she died hungry. Let me have some ntuka and palm oil and fish.' He visited the place, and when the ghost came out he said, ' All right ! I know what is the matter. You are hungry. We have brought some food.' The ghost was laid " 25^ GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Where they are harmless, Grenfell is tender of local cus- toms and observances : — " I fell down. The boys saw, and cried, ' Mpoto,' and I have to pay. If anyone of position falls down, the onlookers cry 'Mpoto' and claim a fee. A chief pays 200 rods. It cost me more, for Boyambula said, 'You are Ngoie's people, we are nobodies.' This distinction is made now and again, and I am careful to make it plain that we are here as much for Babangi as for Bamoye, so paid the mpoto'.'' In these diaries there are many notes on reliorious teachino-. 125. .SCHOLARS AT A PORTUGUESE ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION STATION, PORTUGUESE CONGO especially for the translation of Christian dogmas and meta- phors. The Trinity was a crreat stumbling-block to the out- spoken Congo peoples, who often complained in Grenfell's hear- ing that while their teachers insisted there was but one God, they nevertheless enjoined on them the worship of " two." The diarist adds in a note that it was difficult to ensure recognition for the Holy Ghost as an independent member of the Trinity. Some of the native evangelists were inconveniently zealous. If they observed a man or woman sleeping in the audience at any service or lecture they instantly made them stand up, and in obdurate cases laid on whacks to rouse the slumbrous to the full sense of their enormities. Another over-zealous convert MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 253 brouoht his wife to the Mission and accused her of sin in that she had been " o-rinding her teeth." His idea arose from a distortion of the passage, "Where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth " ! Meantime to prevent listless- ness during discourses (especially when teaching was new to the people or the teacher imperfectly acquainted with the vernacular) the natives were told that they might bring some light handiwork to the schoolroom or chapel, which could be an occupation to their idle fingers, whilst their minds were 126. MAN AND WOMAN OF THE NGOMBE TR113E, ADHERENTS OF THE BAPTIST MISSION, BOPOTO occupied with the missionary's discourse. Several women of obtuseness (rather than malice prepense) made this suggestion ridiculous by cracking palm nuts with hammers or splitting fire- wood with such a din that^the exhortation fell on deafened ears, Grenfell enjoys recording occasional anecdotes of this kind, no doubt to show that the converts still retained in their dispositions traces of the old Adam : — " One of the native evangelists, who had previously been an nganga or medicine-man, had in his previous capacity taken many fees. After his conversion to Christianity he was challenged by his former dupes to return the money he had received as fees for his services. This he 254 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO declined to do, saying, ' At that time I was serving the Devil, and these fees were the wages 1 got for my service. ' " " A native youth from the Upper Congo of weakly build admitted to me that he was only fooling the people by getting money out of them for charms. ' But you see,' he said, ' I cannot work, and I jnust live somehow ! ' " Here is an episode, culled from the diary, illustrating the leave-taking" of a missionary who after eight years' work amongst the restless, excitable Babangi had won their affection and confidence : — " 1 8th July 1894. Darby is evidently very popular, for the people are much averse to his leaving. They have been calling him all sorts of bad names because he leaves them. ' You know our language and can teach us, and now you are going to leave us in the dark again. You are bad ! You are bad ! What are you going for?' He replies, 'Don't I want to see my father, sisters, and brothers? That is not bad?' ' But what do you want to go all that way for? Are we not all your people? Are we not your brothers and sisters? Don't we all belong to you?' 'But perhaps I want to bring a wife to help me!' 'Oh! That's no reason. Look here (pointing to a circle of women) ; one, two, three, four, five, six — take which one you like — take them all! ! !'" But no picture of missionary life on the banks of the Upper Congo would be complete without allusion to the difficulties connected with navigation. The mission boats, canoes, steamers must be constantly plying between station and station, schools and workshops, the villages of Christian natives and those still remaining in heathenry. Such adventures as are here described could of course be told of the American members of the Congo Balolo and Presbyterian missions, the Roman Catholic missionaries, and other propagandists on the Upper Congo, besides the traders and State officials. They only possess special interest because — recorded as they are just after the incident has happened — they exhibit vividly the difficulties attending steamer traffic on these nine thousand miles of Central African rivers, the unfailing- good temper of Grenfell and his colleagues, and the wonderful aptitude of the Upper Congo negroes by which, after a few years' tuition, they could be turned from naked, noisy cannibals into quiet, workmanlike mechanicians and engineers, with just here and there a relapse into indifference and thoughtlessness : — "Bolobo, March 18 1897. Heavy weather. Having the lighter Bristol and the s.s. Goodwill^ on the beach, heavily laden for the run up- ' The Goodwill was the fine new steamer launched at Bolobo in 1893. MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 257 river, we are anxious to get away, for water is dead low, and heavy weather is especially try^ing to our craft at this season. "March 19. At 9 p.m. last evening a strong wind from the south decided me to anchor the Bristol separate from the Goodnn/l ; so we had the Peace, Bristol, and Goodwill each within half a length of the other, and the outside one not far enough from the rocks to allow of their swinging round. By 9.30 the Goodivill had swung upstream to within dangerous proximity of the reef, and we had to get a stern anchor out downstream. But the canoe had been so lifted on to the beach by the heavy surf that it took twenty men nearly an hour to get it off. However, by half-past ten, and after several intervals of absolute darkness (for though we had three lanterns, heavier gusts then usual would at times put them all out) we managed so to fix things that we ____ , ^ 128. THE "peace" damaged IN A STORM were able to go to bed and sleep, all the more readily because the wind was falling, though the surf rolled in on the beach as it does roll after the wind has had full play with the Congo water for six miles. . . . " March 20. This morning we had nearly an hour's work to get the steamer off the beach, for the wind had blown her stern on to the sand with such force that fifty men pushing off could not make her budge an inch. After some attempts we resorted to the use of a long, heavy plank lever inserted under the stern of the steamer in a hole dug in the sand. With this piece of timber as a fulcrum and some twenty men on the plank the bow of the steamer was sufficiently eased from the sand to allow of the pushing men to move her a few inches. Another lift after another hole had been dug and the fulcrum rearranged, and we moved a foot. A third attempt, and we were free and swinging by the anchor where it had run out astern to prevent our being blown on the rocks, which we could not have avoided if we had tried to steam I. — s 258 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO out astern, for we should have been on the reef before we could have got any way on the steamer. "At last we were clear and our stern anchor aboard ; we blew a farewell on the whistle, dipped our flag by way of good-bye to our friends on the beach who had come to see us off. As soon as we got on our course we rang three on the signal gong, equal to ' All right, full speed ahead.' But we had not got full way on when the water began to break over the gunwale of the forty-foot canoe we had on the port side ; indeed, it also came over the side of the Bristol, a fifty-foot lighter we had on the starboard side ; but this being decked, it was a matter of no consequence. " To prevent sinking at once, we rang the signal for slow. But even 129. THE WHO HELPED TO PUT THE " PEACE " RIGHT AG.\IN at slow the water came in faster than we could bale it out, so we stopped ; but then the steamer lost steering way and broached to, and the canoe filled and would have gone down, but that it was of light wood, and also had been firmly secured to the after bollards, as well as to the towing-boom forward. By this time we had come into sight of a wind-bound steamer waiting in a sheltered bay for the waves to moderate before she ventured to face them. We were going with the wind, so it was a very different matter for us, though bad enough, seeing we had to run ashore and beach the canoe before we could bale her out. However, we managed to get just a little more than a mile in the first hour of our run and to make another start. By careful man- oeuvring, and going slowly, we managed to run a mile and a half, passing the wind-bound steamer, when down went the canoe again, and again we had to run to the beach to bale her out, and fought the troublesome substitute for the boat we lost last year. By this time, MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 261 however, the worst of the water was behind us, for we had got into a sheltered region behind an island, and we were able to ring ' All right, full speed ahead,' and this time without having to ring down again till an hour or so later, when we ran on a shoal, with only three feet of water where last season there was a deep channel. But pulling the helm hard over, and carefully feeling our way with the lead, we were not long before we struck the new channel the water had cut for itself " The trouble with the canoe had quite spoilt my breakfast, though I managed while on my feet to get a spoonful or two of porridge, thus satisfy- ing my most pressing claims of appetite. By the time dinner was ready I was very hun- gry, but so many had been seasick on ac- count of the heavy weather that every- thing was late. By this time, too, heavy clouds to the south- west began to bank up over Bolobo Hill, and the lightning we saw and the thunder we heard told us we had got away only just in time to escape another storm. But the clouds were begin- ning to work round to east and south. So long as they were 131. somewhat behind us we had little fear. By three o'clock, however, they had so gained on us that they were well abreast, and it became needful to seek shelter to windward, not always an easy task on a river like the Congo with its long open stretches. " We had just barely reached a promising little channel between two islands when the wind broke over us with full tornado force, playing havoc with the tops of the trees, and lashing the main stream into fury. Protected as we were by the forest, we felt but little of it, though we deemed it needful to warp into a new position lest a tree might fall across our steamer, an accident that has occurred before now on the liUNGUJU, lllK ,Mlb.>10N KNGINEER, AND HIS WIFE (Bungudi was a Bateke boy, trained by Grenfell.) 262 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Congo. Just before night set in the rain began to fall as only tropical rain can, and though it only kept up for a couple of hours things were damp by the time it was finished, for such rain driven by the fag-end of a tornado finds out every corner and makes things uncomfortably moist. We must have had over a couple of inches of rain in two hours. " This delay with that of the morning quite prevented our getting to Nkunda as we hoped in time to spend Saturday night and Sunday among the people of that important trading-place at the mouth of the Alima, on the French side of the river. As we felt we could not keep our crew all day in the reeking swamp where we had put up to avoid the storm, we got up steam, and after four hours of easy going reached our hoped-for port for the day. After an informal sort of Sunday-school on board in the afternoon whereat Patty played her violin, Bungudi his melodeon, and the dozen or more children we had on board sang lustily, we adjourned on shore for a meeting among the people. The music was a great attraction, and we got a hundred or more of them to listen to messages from both the Law and the Gospel. The 'Law' made some of them wince perceptibly, for they had tied up a poor creature accused of witchcraft and were preparing to 'cut the witch out of him ' (a proceeding involving death) as evidence of the truth of their charge. " By daj'light the next morning steam was up and we were well under weigh when the sun rose in a splendour all peculiar to this season of storms. It was a glorious sight, and our hearts involuntarily wor- shipped the Author of it all. . . . " We met at Bunga an agent of the Dutch house who a month or two ago left Brazzaville in the ill-fated Alima for the upper Sanga, taking with him some 50,000 francs' worth of barter goods for the es- tablishment of a factory. Unfortunately, the Alima sank in deep water and is a total loss for the French Government, who are now left with only one steamer afloat of all their fleet. . . . Just now Bunga is dry enough, the water having only just begun to rise after a fall of nearly eighteen feet. When the flood was at its maximum the agents of the S.A. Co. could only leave their verandah by means of a canoe. The Dutch house is just above high-water mark, and has not been flooded. It occupies the only spot that is not annually covered. . . ." " 29th of March 1898. We started this morning for Bonginda, but although we left in good time, the sandbanks were so numerous that we did not get in till after dark. Off Bisanga we had quite a difficulty to get into the channel, a long, oblique sandbank some two miles in length ending in a crest one could plainly see over which the river flowed as over a weir. Excepting at its extremity close to the left bank, it appeared nowhere to have more than eighteen inches of w-ater over it, and less than a foot over by far the greater part of it. The only available channel was about two fathoms deep, but as it was not much broader than twelve feet, and as the shore line was bristling with snags, it would have been a difficult pass even in good weather, whereas we had quite a heavy wind blowing upstream, and our vessel (eighty-four feet long) did not swing round quickly enough. So we had to back out and try again. The next attempt was al.-o a failure. The MISSIONARY VICISSITUDES 263 third time we fetched up against a snag, but the fourth was a success, and we got through. I have never made the passage up the Lulongo at such low water along the channel between the island and the bend where Bonginda comes into view and the mainland. We had to cross four times from island to mainland before we got through, and it was only by scraping the trees just below Bonginda that we managed to find water enough. Coming down, we simply charged the bank both here and at Bosonga, and cut a way through ; for the crests of these banks are but narrow, though quite wide enough to resist the passage of a steamer against currents. Steam plus current gave us sufficient im- petus to jump the banks as we came down. Providing the sandbanks are not wide enough to take the speed off our go- ing, it is not difficult for a sharp-edged steamer like the Good- will X.o cut the needful groove through them, especially when she is laden, and charges bow down, though it makes things dance on board ! We find if our steamer is light forward she just glides up on to the bank and sits down, and then there is trouble ! Six, eight, ten, or even fif- teen hours on a sunken bank, as we have had '3^- lokongi, a mission teacher at eolobo at times, with every- body pushing or pulling or laying out anchors — this is no joke, especially with a tropical liver and lots of bile accumulating ! . . . " 30th of March 1898. . . . We set to work at once to take off the starboard propeller, the shake having become too bad to allow of our passing the remainder of our journey without attending to it. The keyway is tight in the shaft, but it is too small for the propeller. We hammered it out to the necessary amount, though as it is of tool steel it is slow and tedious work. To allow of the propeller going further up the cone of the tail shaft we have to cut the after end of the wing of 264 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO this key. We have had to take out a watertight gland in one of the bulkheads to remove the intermediate shaft, and to allow of the tail shaft being withdrawn from the stern tube, for we find it needful to work on the shaft as well as the propeller. . . . 31st of March. . . . We finished by 6 p.m., but only just managed to get through. The pro- peller doors (we have doors through the bottom hole for working at the propeller) had to be repacked. " 2lst of April 1898. This evening one of our stupid boys (one of the stupidest of them) went to take the cap off the water inlet for fill- ing the boiler before the steam was quite finished after blowing down. As a consequence, he was half scared out of his wits at the rush of steam, and what was worse, the cap went overboard in eighteen feet of water, with a strong current running. Some of the boys managed to touch the bottom in their efforts to find the cap, but it was useless to try and pick up so small an article. Unfortunately, we have nothing larger than one-inch pipe thread screwing gear on board, so we have to extemporize clips and cover-plate and bolt them together with the connecting bolts of the spare eccentric gear. Poor Bungudi is sweating away as I write this to fix up the apparatus." CHAPTER XIII THE RIVER CONGO BETWEEN 1890 and 1900 Grenfell had, when oppor- tunity offered, contuiued his explorations of the main Cono;o, besides makino- occasional visits to Lake Ntomba, the lower Sanga, the Lulongo, Rubi, Aruwimi, Lomami, Lindi, and Chopo rivers. This period of ten years 133. GRIiXKELL, LAW^ijX lolllLl'l I, MR. AND MRS. I.EW'Is Xl' S.\X S.\ \1 n.i R, I 893 was, however, mainly devoted to the Emperor river of this mighty confederation, in which the Mubangi, Kasai, Lomami, Ruki, Sanga, and Aruwimi are vassal Kings, and the remain- ing streams Grand Dukes, Princes, Margraves, and Serene Highnesses. When Grenfell paid his last visit to England in 1900-1 he prepared for publication by the Royal Geographical Society 265 266 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO his magnificent map of the Congo in ten sections, from Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls. Between 1878 and 1892 he had studied the aspects of the Lower Congo from Banana Point on the Atlantic coast to the Kintambu or Ntamo Rapids, at the western exit from Stanley Pool ; and in 1903 — possibly again in 1905 — he had visited the Lualaba-Conoro above Stan- ley Falls to as far south as the Hinde Rapids and the Bambare Mountains. His notes, there- fore (together with those of his colleaQues and of other travel- lers), on the leading character- istics of the main Congo may be conveniently summarized here in the last chapter but one dealing with these missionary explora- tions. The actual mouth of the Cono-o is seven miles wide between Banana Point on the north-east and the hook-like promontory of Sant' Antonio (Shark Point) on the south-west. But the whole estuary is from fifteen miles to seventeen miles at its broadest, between Nemlao, near Banana, and Kino- Antonio's town on the shores of Diego's Bay. The great depths in the main channel of the estuarine Congo begin eastwards off Mumpanga Island (Mbulambemba) and range between seventy-two and nine hundred feet. This deep trough (increasing in depth to four thousand feet) is carried west-north- west, outside the river's "under-hung" mouth (shaped like a salmon's jaws), through a shallow coastal sea for some hundred and twenty miles, till it merges in the ocean depths ; and all this distance the current and the fresh water of the mighty river are still discernible. Mile I 134. MAP OF HANANA POINT, ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE CONGO MOUTH THE RIVER CONGO 267 The innumerable islands and creeks of the Congo near the mouth of its estuary are covered with mangrove woods, with here and there an occasional pandanus. But at Kisanga, a Portuguese trading station on the south bank, the forest growth becomes more varied, and especially beautiful are the eight-feet- high Lissochilus orchids. The strange scenery of Kisanga is well worth a visit, and was described by the present writer many years ago as a " vegetable Venice." There is behind the vast lake-like Congo a labyrinthine maze of narrow tidal creeks, natural canals permeating an absolutely flat mudland covered with fantastic forest — mangroves, pandanus, wild date, raphia and oil palms, tall ferns, taller orchids (with enormous 135. BANANA POINT, AT THE MOUTH OF THE CONGO red-mauve, gold-centred flowers), large-leaved fig trees, and an occasional slender-stemmed cocoa-nut. This green and grey vegetation frinored with the mauve orchids is reflected with mirror-like fidelity in the still water. Its monotony of half-tint is broken here and there by black, gnarled, rotting stems of dead trees or by the bunches of black ants' nests in the tree-forks. The Mussmida shrubs contribute their white-velvet clusters of sepals, and some of the mangroves' stems and roots are glistening grey-white. Roosted on the outlying branches are white and black fishing-vultures. Otherwise the inhabitants of this Venice of winding creek and fantastic tree architecture are more nearly toned to the sur- roundings. Greenish-grey and umber-brown colobus monkeys move quietly about the leafy branches, eating the foliage of certain 268 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO trees ; fishing-owls of red or yellowish-brown perch unperceived on boles and stumps of the same colour ; small greenish-grey glossy herons lurk amongst the snags and roots that are left above the mud of the retreating tide ; blue and grey kingfishers, grey and pink barbets perch on bare twigs ; greenish-grey mud- hopping fish {^Periophtlialmus) flip-flop through the ooze and up on to the exposed tree roots, pursued by large dark-blue and buff land-crabs emerging from rat-hole burrows in the strips of sand. Out in the open water floating logs look like grey- 136. THE ESIUAKINE CONGO NEAR ITS MOUTH brown crocodiles, and crocodiles, half submerged or wholly exposed on banks of sand or mud, look like grey-brown rugose tree trunks. The A-solongo people who, as fishermen, dwell in this tidal swamp region of the Congo estuary (south bank chiefly) are still a suspicious, degenerate, unpromising race, a people who have been strangely neglected by all missionary societies since the eighteenth century, down to the establishment among them of the American Baptists a few years ago at Mukimvika on the Portuguese bank. The natives of the north bank of the Congo estuary are, in the swamps, A-solongo, but on the high ground farther north belong to the Kakongo stock, a much THE RIVER CONGO 269 mixed community of low, brutish slaves and intelligent, better- looking freemen or aristocracies. The lower classes are called Bafiote; the higher, A-ngoyo, Kabinda, Bavili, and Ba-Kochi. A-solongo and Kakongo are alike related closely in language to the Eshi-kono'O or BakonQO of the cataract region. Opposite Ponta da Lenha^ the main Congo narrows sud- denly to a width of under a mile, as regards the clear channel navigable by big steamers ; though the breadth taken across water, islands, and sandbanks at this point is the average seven miles of the estuarine Conoo. Eastwards of Ponta da Lenha the Coneo swells out aoain to a breadth of some thirteen 137. SKIN OF PYTHON, 2$ FT. LONG, 2 FT. 7 IN. BROAD WHKN DkV, KILLED AT NGANGILA, NEAR MATADI miles, and has almost the aspect of Stanley Pool with the channels north and south of the long central island of Mateba, Between Fetish Rock on the south and the easternmost extremity of the Mateba archipelago on the north the Congo again narrows as one approaches Boma. This place has long been of importance. The name should really be spelt Mboma or Emboma, and is probably identical with the word for python. Not only are (or were) enormous pythons - very common in that district, but they may have been ^ Which in Portuguese means the Wooding Point. ^ Some of these are reported to have measured thirty feet in length. Here is an authentic account of one killed by the Rev. M. Hunter Reid some few years ago at Ngangila, about thirty miles north-east of Boma. The passage is extracted from a 270 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO at one time associated as a totem with some clan of people estab- lished at this place. Boma probably derived its early importance from being the first approach from the seaward side of the solid mainland to the waters of the Congo, and also as the eastern limit of easy tidal navigation up the Congo estuary. About Boma the Congo diminishes abruptly in breadth, and the stream becomes strong and swift. In fact, one has entered the Cataract region, though the river continues to be 138. LOOKING DOWN THE CONGO TOWARDS BOMA, FROM UNDEKHILL letter recently written by Mr. Hunter Reid to the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt, whose brother, the Rev. William Forfeitt, photographed the skin of the snake : — "In answer to your question, the snake's skin when dry was 25 feet 2 inches long, and 2 feet 7 inches wide. It is now in the New York Museum. The morning I shot the leopard from which Mrs. Forfeitt took some of the claws, the natives ran out a buffalo and some antelope at the back of the Mission. I shot the buffalo and two antelope. You had one hind-quarter, if you remember. Just as the natives entered the woods or jungle to start up more game that huge snake knocked one man to the ground, breaking one arm and several ribs. It then threw itself about him and reached for another man, whom it also got into its embrace before I could get to the spot. When I arrived I had to pick a shot at its head and not harm the two men, whom it held with the grip of a vice. I shot it but once. The expansive ball used blew out one half of its brain, and its motions on the ground were a sight long to be remembered. When the snake ceased to struggle I and the natives could walk along its back as easily as you could walk on a great big log. No doubt you remember that the stomach of the snake contained not less than one peck of brass, copper, and iron rings, such as the natives wear on the arms and legs. The stomach was taken by one of King Nsikachi's witch-doctors, and prized by him as a wonderful charm. A snake of that size would swallow an antelope as large as a cow, horns and all." THE RIVER CONGO 271 navigable for powerful steamers as far eastwards as Matadi, or even the approach to Vivi. The depth of the zigzag channel between Vivi and the vicinity of Boma is very great. The river is comparatively narrow, scarcely more than an average mile in width. But in the central channel it has a depth of from three hundred to one hundred and eighty feet. The velocity of the current opposite Matadi is about seven miles an hour, and there are dangerous whirlpools and eddies for canoes and small boats, caused by the deep, swift water swirling round hidden rocks. Eastwards of Boma, low hills begin to approach the river- bank closely, and above Noki these become relatively lofty and picturesque, rising to heights of eight hundred to a thousand feet more or less abruptly from the river's brim. " Hell's Cauldron" (Mayumba Bay), on the north bank of the Congo, opposite the old site of the Baptist mission station of Underbill (Tunduwa), is a grand cliff of purple-red crowned with light oreen grassland. Here the river, which has long flowed over a rocky bed, is comparatively free of detritus in its upper waters,^ and is therefore of glassy clearness. The swirl- ing of the water prevents clear reflections, but nevertheless the whole surface of the contracted river is tinged with a dull purple tone, caught from the deep purplish-red bare cliff above it, and altogether suggestive of some awful Styx faintly tinged with the glow of hell fire. On either side the Congo now — in the vicinity of Matadi — the hills rise as swelling" downs or abrupt terraces to eventual altitudes of two and three thousand feet. Some little distance at the back of Boma and Vivi magnificent forest still lingers — generally known as the Mayombe Forest — and this covers much of the country away from the vicinity of the Congo northwards to the Nyari-Kwilu River. In this district at the back of Boma and Isangila there is still much game — red buffalo, cobus antelopes, reed-buck, bush-buck, and duykers ; also many leopards. On the southern side of the Congo, in Portuguese territory, both behind the mangrove and pandanus marshlands already described, and beyond the grassy, stony hills that succeed them, ' It is a remarkable fact that there are, as it were, two sections of water in the Lower Congo. The under stratum from Vivi to the sea is salt or brackish and charged with silt. This, the greater mass of the Lower Congo water, is only slightly affected by tide and flood, and is relatively immobile. The upper current is fresh and flows swiftly, counteracting the ebb tide very considerably. This upper current may vary twenty feet in height in the gorge between Matadi and Prince's Island, near Boma, according to flood time or dry season. 272 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO the country becomes parklike, but exhibits nowhere any vast stretch of primeval forest. It has evidently been much more subdued by the hand of man than the regions north of the Lower Congo. At Matadi, now the principal port of the Lower Congo, whither ocean-going steamers can proceed to discharge their cargo, the Railway^ commences, and proceeds in a fairly straight direction to Stanley Pool, taking, however, a wide divergence 139. OLD UNDERBILL (TUNDUWA) STATION AND HELL'S CAULDRON from the course of the cataract Congo ; for if an attempt is made to follow the river upstream from Matadi the path along ^ The Congo Railway from Matadi to Stanley Pool was opened for public use on July 4th 1898. It had taken eight and a half years to construct, and of course during the process of its construction it was assailed by every form of invective, ridicule, dis- paragement, etc. etc., as is the fate of all pioneering African railways, those of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Lagos, Uganda, and the Sudan not excepted. The in- auguration of the complete line was attended by some degree of ceremony, and the Baptist Mission, grateful for its facilities, took a prominent part in the festivities. They received a visit, amongst other guests of the State, from M. de Kologrivoff", the official delegated by the Tsar of Russia to be present at the opening of the railway and to report in general on the affairs of the Congo Free State. The missionaries of this society, and of all others that I have interrogated, speak in the highest terms of the railway management by Colonel Thys and of his action generally in Congo ques- tions. The railway has undoubtedly been one of the most successful manifestations of Belgian enterprise and good administration. An excellent description of the line was published in 1907 by M. Louis Coffin (Brussels, Weissenbruch). I. — T THE RIVER CONGO 275 its banks would proceed at first almost due north to Isangila, and then north-eastwards. Above Vivi the traveller coming from the west encounters the 270 miles' series of cataracts which Stanley named the Livingstone Falls. Between Vivi-Matadi and Isangila the Congo is perfectly unnavigable, from its swiftness. The first impassable rapids to be met with in ascending the river from the sea are at Nzeke, seven miles east of Vivi. Above that come the falls of Yalala. These are described by Stanley as a series of vehement, rushing, tumultuous, and vexed waters 141. A STEAMER ASCENDING THE LOWER CONGO HEADING FOR THE PORT OF MATADI precipitated with remarkable force and energy down an incline which drops some forty-five feet in a course of five or six miles. Their noise can be heard nine miles away. The width of the Congo at this place is less than five hundred yards, s"^^ b!^^ Above the falls of Yalala, the narrowing Congo is strewn with several islands and islets, one especially remarkable — at any rate, some years ago — ^for being a mass of velvet woods, contrasting strongly with the harsh, bare rocks and innumerable boulders of the surrounding landscapes. Another islet was white with guano and numbers of pelicans squatting and standing on its summit. This, when the present writer saw it in 1883, was a favourite breeding-place for these birds, being inaccessible to man. Before the first fall takes place, the river, glides on smoothly 276 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO with a clear surface, " as if never suspecting the terrible conflict before it." The narrowing" channel is then split in two by a long, low, narrow, rocky island. In the passages on either side of this the river lashes itself into fury, coming down (as Bentley says) "with a series of ten-foot leaps, plunging into wild waves at a high velocity, wave dashing upon wave, and throwing the spray far into the air." According to Bentley, the r ver channel is not excessively deep at Yalala ; yet the gorge is narrow. "It is a struggle of water not to be surpassed on the face of the earth." According to the present writer's notes, made twenty-four 142. THE RIVER Ci).\i.(i Ai;ii\'l-. VIVl, UELuW llIE NZEKl, RAilJi>, THE LAST OF THE LIVINGSTONE FALLS years ago, the Congo does not descend at each of the three or four cataracts of Yalala more than about twelve feet at a time. The air in this gorge (from which the hills rise steeply to heights of fifteen hundred feet) is full of comminuted spray, maintaining a special vegetation. The rocks near the water's edo^e are covered with a Ions: filamental water-weed of intense emeralcl-oreen which looks like tresses of lonor areen hair. A Plumbago creeper festoons the brows of the caverns which the water at some time or other has hollowed in the walls of stone, caverns which are now above the level of the flood. This creeper puts forth many tufts of bluish-white flowers. On the grey rocks large blue and red lizards chase flies that are basking THE RIVER CONGO 277 in the sunlight, both Hzards and flies being attracted by the operations of the native fishermen, who place wickerwork baskets and traps along the edges of the torrent to catch the fish that are swirled down the falls of Yalala. A good many years ago the gorge of the Congo between Yalala and Isangila was much frequented by the red buffaloes of West Africa. So abundant were they on many a grassy flat at the mouth of some small tributary of the Congo as to give these natural meadows quite a farmyard smell. But no doubt the presence of Europeans and the abundance of guns in the 143. GENERAL VIEW OF THE YALALA FALLS possession of the natives have long since driven away or destroyed the buffaloes of Isangila. There is a good deal of beautiful scenery — high cliff, forest- filled gorges, white weirs of broken water — between Vivi and Isangila, but this region still remains, for no reason as yet dis- covered, a very unhealthy part of the Congo. It is infested by the small, black biting flies {Simulium). According to Bentley, the narrowest part of the whole Congo channel is not at Yalala, but between Ngoma Mountain and Isangila, to the south of that place. Here the Congo must be of enormous depth, as its tremendous volume of water flows in the main through one passage scarcely more than one 278 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO hundred and thirty yards wide, and another not more than thirty yards in width on the other side of the island. Yet there is no swirHng, and not only small steamers but rowing- boats can ascend against the stream. Another very narrow part of the river is opposite the mouth of the Kwilu, between Isangila and Manyanga. From Isangila to Manyanga there are several rapids/ but none that are impassable by a steamer or even a boat. Over this stretch of some seventy miles a good deal of navigation was carried on in the early days of the Congo Free State and 144. FALLS OF CONGO AT ISANGILA; SKETCH KV THE AUTHOR of the Baptist Mission. The river remains narrow, and com- passed by lofty downs, variegated here and there by strange, craggy, castellated rocks, in which there are remarkable out- crops of limestone. To the south of Manyanga there are peaks on the plateau which rise to between three and four thousand feet, such as Mount Wia. In the bed of the river, between Isangila and Itunzima Rapids, there are curious reefs of slate-like rocks running parallel with the river's course and at its average height just a few feet above the foaming water. They look in their regular though tilted stratification like rows of slates in a builder's yard. The shore-line of the Congo and of its larofer islands is of dazzling^ white sand. These sandbanks ^ Notably, in this order as one ascends, the Nzambi, Itunzima, and Ndunga. THE RIVER CONGO 279 are often pitted with black holes, seemingly the burrows in which the pratincoles {GalactocJuysea) nest. The banks, at any rate, are haunted by numbers of these small, red-beaked, swallow-like plovers. In portions of the Isangila-Manyanga stretch the Congo widens to a mile in breadth, but it may also narrow to a little over three hundred yards. Above the Ndunga Rapids the river is pent up in a gusty, windy trough, between steep, sterile slopes. Here, as Stanley remarks, Nature has begrudged life — animal as well as veoetable — and he comments on the extreme 145. A CONGO CATARACT : SKETCH bY THE AUTHOR unhealthiness of this region, subject as it is to constant chilly winds. Though big game is seemingly absent, however, from this unattractive region, the river- banks and cliffs are alive with fishing-vultures and kites, and the rocks with cormorants and darters. The somewhat sterile down-country away from the river-banks abounds with snakes to a degree unusual in Congoland — chiefly spitting cobras {Naja) and deadly tree- cobras [Dendraspis), Causus vipers, and puff-adders. From Manyanga to Stanley Pool there is a stretch of troubled Congo about a hundred miles in length. Eastwards of Man- yanga the gorge of the Congo is more picturesque, especially along the Zinga Rapids. There is the magnificent cascade of the Edvv'in Arnold or Luvubi stream, nearly opposite the native settlement of Lutete. The waters of the Edwin Arnold River 28o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO look in the distance like a white cloth laid at intervals over the purple wooded hills as they come leaping in tremendous cas- cades of two hundred feet at a time into the foaming Conoro, for the big river is lashed into white fury by a long succession of the Zinga Falls. The course of the Congo, from the days when the vast Congo sea ceased overflowing towards Lake Chad across the Mubangi watershed and pressed with its waters against the western barrier, has simply deepened or been carved by the 146. THE SITE OF JIANYANGA, CENTRAL CATARACT REGION force of water right athwart the north-w^est and the south-east trend of the earth-wrinkles,' and the river flows through a ^ The Belgian geographers style the belt of broken plateau — some two hundred and fifty miles broad — through which the Congo has sawn its way, the " Serra do Cristal," a name applied to the coast range by the Portuguese centuries ago. They maintain that in the Congo basin this broad, corrugated tableland has a relative depres- sion in the centre, about si.xty miles in width, corresponding to the navigable stretch of the Congo between Manyanga and Isangila. The Belgians speak of the Manyanga- Stanley Pool highlands as the "chainon oriental des Monts du Cristal," and of the Isangila-Boma hills as the "chainon occidental." M. A. J. Wauters in his Lc relief du Bassin du Congo has shown how there was once a small coastal river — the "Banana" river — which rose in the 3,000-feet-high mountains of Zinga, beyond Man- yanga. This stream was joined near its source by the Inkisi, then by the Kwilu, and lastly near Matadi by an affluent of almost equal length, the Mpozo, coming from the Zombo plateau. These all united to form a river which entered the sea between Banana and Sharkpoint. Then the Congo Lake overflowed the first rampart of the Bateke hills, filled to the brim the depression of Stanley Pool, and beat against the Zinga mountains till it had breached their walls ; after which it rushed down the narrow gorge of the "Banana river," and so carried its pent-up waters to the Atlantic. THE RIVER CONGO 281 crooked zigzag gorge nearly a thousand feet deep in places and very narrow. To traverse this country by land is like going up and down a series of switchback railways — up two thousand feet, down fifteen hundred feet, up again another thousand, then a drop of five hundred, then some gigantic climb to three thousand, and down again another five hundred. The tribu- taries of the Congo in this reg^ion flow almost at ricrht angles to the great river they are going to join, along deep valleys, equally at right angles to the trough of the Congo. Many 147. SCENERY IN THE CATARACT REGION OF THE CONGO (SOUTH OF THE RIVER) of these valleys are filled with magnificent forest, which becomes more and more of a luxuriant equatorial character as one approaches Stanley Pool. As regards this section of the river (Bentley remarks) the water of the Congo is rich in iron. As it splashes up on the rocks in the hot sun, the water evaporates and leaves a small russet deposit, which gets burnt on to the stone. Another splash, and a little more is left, and so on till a chocolate lacquer is formed over the rocks, smooth and hard, often only one thirty- second of an inch in thickness. The deposit so thoroughly hides the character of the rocks that Stanley at one time believed the hard quartzite-sandstone formation of the Kalulu Falls west of Stanley Pool to be lava. The same remark has 282 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO been made bv other travellers regrardinCT the rock formations croppmg out here and there in the cataract region of the Congo. They are referred to as "igneous," whereas they are merely sandstone or other formations coated with an iron deposit. There are said to be genuine evidences of igneous rock near Isangila — alluded to by Bentley, Stanley, and one or two Belgians — but there is so little other evidence of volcanic activity in this part of West Africa that these too are probably only stones coated with iron deposit. 148. NZEKE RAPIDS, THE LAST OF THE LIVINGSTONE FALLS, NEAR VIVI Here is a description by Bentley of scenery in the Congo Gorge near the Kalulu Falls : — "The view at the junction of the Congo with the Nkalama (Luila) stream was very beautiful, for a good stretch of river lay open ; the wooded hills, rich in palm trees, the lighter tinted strips of jungle, the gleaming white sandbanks, the black rocks, the swirling, raging, seething water make a picture which arrests every traveller as it breaks into view. . . . Just below this point are the Lady Alice Rapids. On either side stretches a broad waste of huge boulders. The pebbles on the beach are often twenty inches in diameter ; they lie strewn on a rocky shore, but are covered at high flood. Between these two beaches of giant pebbles is a narrow rift a mile long, through which the river struggles with great velocity. . . . Here the Congo cannot be more than two hundred yards wide." THE RIVER CONGO 283 North-east of Manyanga there is a considerable cataract known as Kimbala, Then, farther upstream, a long tumultuous stretch of broken water, the Zinga and Muhona Falls. Above these are the Lady Alice Rapids, and, finally, near Stanley Pool, the series of Kalulu Falls. In all there are thirty-two distinct cataracts in the Livingstone Falls of the Congo, ranging from eight to thirty feet in abrupt descent, between the Ntamo Falls, near Leopoldville (five miles west of Stanley Pool), and the Nzeke Rapids, near the confluence of the Mpozo River and the vicinity of Vivi — a distance of about two hundred and sixty miles of water, of which seventy are navigable. The altitude of the Conoco above sea-level at its breaking away from Stanley Pool (Ntamo) is about 915 feet ; ^ at the shor^ of Manyanga it is about 470 feet ; at Isangila, 400 feet ; and on the beach at Matadi, an average 45 feet (ranging from 36 feet to 54 feet). The Lower Congo from Stanley Pool to the sea is called Njali by the Bateke ; Nzadi and Kwangu by the Bakongo ; also, Mwanza in its estuary. Nowhere is it called " Congo." As explained elsewhere, the word " Kongo " means "hunter," and was the original name applied to a tribe on the plateau south of the cataract region of the Lower Congo. When in 1877 the chief of Rubunga, 600 miles east of Stanley Pool, uttered the magic word " Kongo," he merely meant that the great river, followed westward, would lead to the native kingdom of that name. The end of November or beoinning- of December witnesses the highest water in the Lower Congo from Stanley Pool to Matadi. The fall in the cataract reoion beg-ins in December and the lowest levels are attained in July. Usually there is a rise and fall of about nine feet in March-April, before extreme low water is reached in July. The rise which with autumn fluctua- tions is to culminate in early December begins usually in July. Much the same seasons (with slight local variations) prevail over the whole of the main Congo between Stanley Falls and Matadi. At Matadi the extreme rise seems to be nineteen to twenty feet over lowest level, and at Noki, nearer the sea, sixteen feet three inches. The rainfall at the mouth of the Congo is very variable, but its maximum scarcely exceeds thirty-eight inches per annum, and is sometimes as low as sixteen ; in the western part of the cataract region, forty-two inches ; at Manyanga, fifty inches ; and on Stanley Pool, fifty-five inches seem to be ' Grenfell invariably made it 800 feet, and French estimates agree with him, but the Belgian calculation of 915 feet appears on most official maps. 284 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO average statements. On the Zombo plateau, south of the cataract Congo, the Rev. Thomas Lewis has recorded a year's rainfall as reaching fifty-three inches. The people along the banks of the cataract Congo belong in the main to the Kongo stock, in language at any rate. On the north bank round Boma they are of mixed Kakongo- Mayo7nbe stock. Then at Isangila succeed the Basundi (who apparently once came from the lower Kwango), and at Man- yanga the Babwendi. The Bateke — wholly dissimilar in language and customs from the Kongo group — reach the north 149. VIEW OF CONGO IN THK CATARACT REGION NEAR STANLEY POOL bank of the river in the cataract region, a little distance east of the Kenka River. Here they call themselves Balali. The Bakongo proper inhabit the north bank of the cataract Congo east of Manyanga and west of the Kenka river ; and they occupy the whole south bank of the river between Noki and the vicinity of Stanley Pool. They are also of course (under different tribal names) the natives of the plateaux lying between the cataract Congo, the Kwango river, and the racial limits of Angola. The navigable Upper Congo commences at Leopoldville, situated above a litde bay about two miles east of the Ntamo THE RIVER CONGO 285 cataracts. This is the point where the railway from Matadi has its terminus. From Leopoldville to Stanleyville, at the foot of the Stanley Falls, a distance of nine hundred and eighty miles, navigation is uninterrupted all the year round. The govern- ment wharf and the railway terminus are within two or three hundred yards of the ledge of rocks over which the river makes the first of a long series of drops on its way to Matadi.^ Stanley Pool is an expanse of water and islands and sand- banks some twenty miles in length by fourteen miles in breadth, but though Kallina Point (al- ways awkward be- cause of the strong current) has been passed on entering it, the difficulties of navigation are not at an end; the south - west corner of the Pool bristles with rocks till Kin- shasa is well astern. Then, as soon as the rocks are passed, one is in the midst of anxieties caused by the sandbanks deposited as the river spreads itself out and becomes too sluoro ish to hold the sand any longer in suspension. The complications due to the sandbanks would not be so great if, like the rocks, they but stayed in the places where one found them. The channel of this season may be dry bank the next, and soon be covered with grass and scrub, but only perhaps to disappear a little later at the rate of some hundreds of cubic yards per minute as it is undermined by the ^ This paragraph and much of what follows is directly quoted from Grenfell. He adds at this point that the total drop of the Congo between Ntamo and Matadi is seven hundred feet, but this is on the assumption that the south end of Stanley Pool is only eight hundred feet above sea-level. Belgian geographers disagree with Grenfell and make this descent eight hundred and fifteen feet. 286 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO current, which has once more been deflected towards its previous course. Sometimes a disappearing sandbank, while it goes to build up an obstacle at some other point, leaves a positive danger in the shape of a reef of rocks which it had previously very effectively masked. The great island of Mbamu or Bamu which fills up all the middle of Stanley Pool is, with its northern sandbanks, merely the remains of a gigantic landslip which was caused by the rain from above and the river beneath undermining the sand formations of the low tableland overlooking the northern side 151. DOVER CLIFFS, STANLEY POOL of Stanley Pool. A vestige of this catastrophe is the gleaming scaur of " Dover Cliffs." Before this landslip took place the Conoo flowed in a curved channel south of Bamu Island. The large and small islands of the Pool are at present with- out settled inhabitants, being only visited by parties of Bateke and Bayanzi for the purpose of fish-curing. But according to native tradition Bamu was thickly inhabited by Bateke-like people down to some seventy years ago.^ They were exter- ' These are called by the Bayanzi " Bambari, ' which simply means in Lobobangi " People of the River." Mhari, Bali (/, r, and d are interchangeable in negro Africa) is a widespread vocable for river over west-central Africa underlying many diverse forms of speech. Sometimes it is shortened to Ba-, Be-, or combined with prefixes as Kibali, Mambare. A concurrent root word is Naadi, ftyari, shari, chadi ; ibare, iberre, ibele, are forms probably related to the root Bari. THE RIVER CONGO 287 minated by a determined attack on the part of the Bayanzi or Babangi, soon after that race became predominant on the Congo between Lulongo and Stanley Pool. The shores of Stanley Pool — with the exception of a few Bayanzi colonies on the south-east — are the domain of the " Bateke " peoples, represented by the Balali (on the north), Babali (on the south-east), and Ba-wumbu (on the south and south-west)/ At the eastern end of Stanley Pool, where the river leaves the narrow channel and begins to expand, the greatest depth is close up against the precipitous northern bank (where Stanley obtained an average sounding of a hundred feet). Here no doubt further landslips are being prepared which may some day much affect the shape and the navigable channels of the Stanley Pool. Ascending the Congo from Stanley Pool eastwards, the course of the river for a hundred and twenty-five miles is con- fined between steep-faced hills on either side. Between left and ricvht bank the distance ranges from one to two miles, generally less than one mile. The hills rise to eight or nine hundred feet above the river for some distance from the Pool ; but about a hundred miles east of this expansion these wooded cliffs are seldom much more than half that height, are much less steep, and begin to recede from the water's edge. At a point eighty-five miles east of Stanley Pool the Kasai joins the Congo, pouring its immense volume into it at a right angle through a deeply cut chasm in the rocky hills some seven hundred yards in width. Through this relatively narrow gap of very deep water (generally known as the Kwa) steamers have access to the series of waterways furnished by the Kasai and its tributaries, amounting to not less than fifteen hundred miles. When the Kasai is in flood the current in the centre of the Kwa channel runs at from five to six miles an hour, bringing down such an amount of brick-red water as greatly to modify the dark, clear " tea " brown of the great Congo, which gradually fuses with it on the way to Stanley Pool. About forty miles north of the Kwa mouth the " Chenal," as the Belgians call this constricted Congo, terminates ; the hills recede and the river spreads itself out to a width of five miles. The rocky ledges and reefs, the spurs sent out into the river by the hills on both sides, which have been a continual menace since leaving the Pool, now give place (as one ascends) to sand- ' Among and to the east of the Ba-vvumbu is a helot tribe of uncertain affinities known as the Bamfuninga, Bamfunu, Bambundu. 288 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO banks ; and rocks are hardly seen again for five hundred miles. This expansion continues northwards for thirty miles ; it is very shallow, and its further end is characterized by many islands. On the slightly rising ground at its northern extremity the Bolobo villages are found, and just beyond, after narrowing to less than two miles, the channel expands again to a width of five or six miles — the width it practically maintains as far as Lukolela, a distance of one hundred miles. Midway along this reach the Alima pours its water into the Congo from the west, and the delta it forms extends itself into the main stream till the width becomes a little less than four miles. It is at this point alone, throughout the length of this reach, that both banks of 152. LAST RELICS OF THE ANCIENT CONGO PLATEAU — HILLS LINGERING ON THE WESTERN BANK OF UPPER CONGO, NEAR BOLOBO the river are in sight of each other, the long lines of islands elsewhere obscuring the view. On the same side of the river, and some thirty miles beyond the Alima, is the Likuala or Mai Bosaka— a very slow-flowing stream ; and a few miles farther on is the principal mouth of the Sanga, the important tributary that furnishes an available waterway for steamers right up to the south-eastern corner of the German Cameroons colony. There is often a strono- backwater in the main Conoo above o o the Sanga delta when that river is coming down in force. Near Bunga the Sanga flows with a velocity of one hundred and seventy feet a minute ; but in December, when the upper Sanoa is falling- fast, the full Cono-o forces the waters of the lower Sanga upstream in an ebb which greatly raises the level of the lower San^a. The Sanga is best suited for navigation in the month of April. THE RIVER CONGO 289 The Lukolela narrows are some five miles in length, and are formed by a range of low hills of ferruginous conglomerate, though this ridge does not rise more than thirty or forty feet above the river. Beyond the Butunu narrows the river widens to seven miles, but in less than twenty-five miles the con- glomerate ridges upon which Liranga and Ngombe are built reduce the river once more to less than a couple of miles. Liranga is at the south - western limit of the delta formed by the confluence of the Mubano-i with the main stream, and from this point the French boundary trends northwards, fol- lowing the "thal- weg" of the Mu- ban^i instead of that of the Congo. The water rising in the main C o n o- o drives back the flood of the Mu- bangi, and even turns its current up this stream for a short dis- tance. At such times (as in De- cember) the whole country up to the confluence with the Ngiri is under water, even covering towns that are built fifteen feet above ordinary level. The best month for exploring the Ngiri is August. It is at its lowest in May.^ Beyond the Liranga-Ngombe narrows there are one hundred and seventy miles of the Congo's course before, at a point just below Bangala, it is reduced to two and a half miles from bank to bank. So persistently do the islands block the view, that throughout the whole length of this long reach there are very ' Grenfell visited the Ngiri affluent of the Mubangi in 1904. I. — U 153. BORASSUS PALMS ON THE UPPER CONGO 290 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO few places where one bank is observable from the other. The Ruki, the Ikelemba, and the Lulongo riv^ers pour their inky waters into this reach within the first forty miles north of the Equator, and, after mingling with the Congo, very perceptibly darken its hue. These important eastern tributaries furnish more than one thousand miles of navigable waterway, but they mostly traverse very low-lying country. Between the Bangala narrows and Bopoto, where once more the river is perceptibly reduced in width, there is a distance of one hundred and seventy-five miles. Where this reach includes the fifty-mile island of Nsumba the river widens to 134. VIEW ON THK UPPKR CONGO, NEAR liOPOTO, TO SHOW ISLANDS nine miles. The only important tributary received in this reach is the Mongala, from the north-east, a river navioable for more than three hundred miles, and traversing one of the best rubber- producing regions of the Congo State. Nearly opposite the delta of the Mongala River there opens out on the south bank the remarkable Bukatulaka Channel, a southern loop of the Bangala- Congo, enclosing the Congo's largest island, about seventy miles long.^ Bopoto is situated almost at the extreme north of the great "Horseshoe bend" (in 2° 7' N. Lat.), and on the bank of the first semblance of a hill for more than four hundred miles after passing Lukolela. After so long a stretch of low, flat land, it ' The exploration of the Bukatulaka Channel was completed by Grenfell in March 1906 : his last piece of survey work. THE RIVER CONGO 291 is quite refreshing to see a hill, even though it is barely two hundred feet in height ; to the natives, who have not previously seen anything bigger than an anthill, such an altitude is quite impressive, and to the younger people even awe-inspiring. Here one comes into contact with the felspathic bed-rock of the central part of the continent, and for ten miles or so navigation becomes a very serious matter, because of the dangers incident upon the presence of reefs. It is the same rock over which the Congo drops at Stanley Falls, and over which it drops again — a thousand miles away — below Stanley Pool. 155. \Il!:w iMiWN THE CONGO AT BOPOTO FROM A ^^SSION HOUSE The next narrows are one hundred miles beyond Bopoto, and about ten miles above the mouth of the Rubi, Loika, or Itimbiri River ; apparently they are caused by the deposits brought down by that river. The Rubi is navigable by steamers for one hundred and fifty miles, as far as the Rubi Falls, and is the route by which the Congo Government transport leaves the Congo for the Lado enclave on the Nile. At a distance of one hundred and five miles beyond the Rubi narrows, and just beyond the mouth of the Aruwimi, the Congo is reduced to a mile in width, and beyond that point largely loses its lacustrine characteristics. A change announces itself on the southern bank some thirty miles before reaching 292 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Basoko (the centre of administration at the mouth of the Aruwimi River), by the reappearance of rocks and low hills. Opposite Basoko the hills have become pretty continuous, and rise to nearly two hundred feet in height. On the north bank the high land does not commence till one is fifteen miles east of the Aruwimi. Beyond that point it is nearly continuous up to Stanley Falls. On the southern bank, however, the hills soon give place to a narrow ridge of clay and gravel bank slightly above flood-level, and with a wide extent of swampy land in the interior. The distance between Basoko and Stanley Falls is one 156. ON THE BANKS OF THE CONGO NEAR BWEMBA hundred and thirty miles, but at a point a little less than half-way, the Lomami, coming from the south, empties into the Conoo the waters it has grathered alonor a course of more than seven hundred miles [it is navigable for more than two hundred miles]. If the Congo is markedly less in size above the Aruwimi, it is even more markedly reduced beyond the point where it receives the Lomami, and the islands become very few. At twenty miles beyond the Lomami the channel is once more bounded by steep and often rocky banks about three- quarters of a mile apart. During the low-water season the navigation of the last twenty miles below Stanleyville becomes somewhat dangerous, because of the reefs of rocks that at that time lie so close to the surface. Boats drawing more than three feet of water find this part of the river impracticable during the THE RIVER CONGO 293 dead-low water that sometimes obtains at the autumnal equinox, but happily this only lasts for a week or two, and at all other times boats drawing from four to four and a half feet can, with caution, navigate the whole of the nine hundred and eighty miles from the Pool to the Stanley Falls. Upon regarding a map of the Congo between the fifteenth and twenty-fifth meridians, one remarks that the river follows a course indicated by wide curves and comparatively straight lines that contrast very markedly with the serpentine courses of so many rivers. However, if the banks of the river are not traced with the characteristic sharp curves of inland waters, the 157. THE BANKS OF THE CONGO AT YALEMBA, EAST OF THE ARUWIMI CONFLUENCE main volume of the river and the strong currents undoubtedly follow very sinuous lines. Where the river-banks are compara- tively close, say from three-quarters of a mile to one and a half mile apart, the water setting over from one side to the other creates below the point of deflection a counter-current, where banks of sand and mud are deposited, and, upon impinging upon the other side, the water is again deflected and another counter-current set up, to be followed by the formation of other banks. Thus the course of the main volume of water is very tortuous, though, except at very low water, when the banks show above the surface, the fact is apparent only to those who are personally interested in navigating its course. Where the river widens out, as it does in many places, to more than five miles, and even to six, seven, or ten, and where 294 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO it meanders among borassus-covered islands and sandbanks, the waters, instead of maintaining themselves at a depth of several fathoms, are reduced to as many feet, or even less. Spread over so wide an area they become sluggish, and much of the sand with which they have been charged, picked up in the higher regions by the swifter stream, is deposited in the shape of a long series of fantail banks, over the extended edges of which the water glides with its very characteristic rip- ple into the sud- denly deepened channel on the downstream side ; this, in many cases, without affordino- a passage for even a shallow- drausfht steamer. It such a bank is to be passed at all, it is at the ex- tremity, on the opposite side from which its formation commenced, but \'ery often the deeper water, to be looked for between the point of the sandbank and the shore, is so narrow, or is so overhung by trees, as to be im- practicable, and then another channel has to be sought among the islands. As there are nearly eighty islands between five and ten miles in length, and fifty more than ten miles (one is over seventy, another is fifty, ^ and two are more than thirty miles long), getting out of one channel to another is sometimes a serious contingency, involving a long detour. ' Bukatulaka or Bokiimbi, and Nsumba. 158. BORASSUS PALMS ON AN ISLAND OF THE UPPER CONGO THE RIVER CONGO 295 Reviewing the dangers of Congo navigation between Stanley Falls and Stanley Pool, Grenfell writes thus (in 1901) : — " Long reefs of rocks jutting out into the stream, and sometimes occurring as isolated patches in the middle of the river, render the first hundred and fifty miles or so of the Upper Congo beyond Leopoldville particularly dangerous. They have so far, however, caused but two total losses, though they involved very heavy expenditure for repairs to many boats. Reefs projecting from the bank are generally indicated by their shoreward ends presenting themselves to view, and by the ripple they cause upon the surface of the water ; but isolated reefs and rocks are sometimes found in the quiet places below prominent points, where there is no current at all, or perhaps a slight counter-current ; and these are 159. THE SNAGS THAT WRECK THE STEAMERS the most dangerous of all the obstacles to Congo navigation. A forty-ton steamer was wrecked on one of these projecting reefs, but her cargo and much of her machinery was saved ; and the Courbet, sister craft of the Faidhcrbe that was carried across the watershed dividing the Congo from the Nile to figure in the ' Fashoda affair,' was lost by striking one of these isolated masses of rock in comparatively still water. She struck it with sufficient force to tear open several plates and to pass over into deep water beyond, where, some four or five minutes later, she sank, as H.M.S. Victoria sank, bow first, and her propeller still revolving in the air as her stern disappeared from view. " Next to the rocks in importance amongst the dangers of Congo navigation one must rank the ' snags.' They cause as many accidents as rocks, but happily not such serious ones. As the Congo and its affluents with their more than four thousand islands furnish at least twenty thousand miles of overhanging wooded banks, the number 296 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO of trees which fall annually into the water is very considerable. Many of these are of greater specific gravity than water, and just lie where they fall ; the lighter ones float for a while, but becoming waterlogged they sink to the bottom. Those that sink in deep water are of no menace ; but those that lie in such a position that when the river falls they will come within a few feet of the surface are a constant source of danger. " Steamers drawing more than three feet of water incur greatly increased risks, because snags and rocks below that depth give little or no evidence on the surface of their existence below. During the low- water season, steamers drawing more than four feet of water are navigated with considerable difficulty, by reason of the innumerable sandbanks which encumber the channels. This is especially the case on downward journeys, much time being frequently lost in pushing or in warping off. If the steamer draws three feet or less the crew can generally solve the difficulty in a little while by jumping into the water and pushing in the required direction, two or three of them being occupied the meanwhile in searching for deeper water. Having found it, they form into a line of living buoys, indicating the best route across a shallow patch. If mere pushing is not enough, the anchors of shallow boats can easily be carried out into four or five feet of water, and the winch be brought into requisition for the work of warping off. But when the boat draws four feet or more, anchors have to be carried out by means of boats or canoes, and warping off becomes a specially wearisome operation. Stern-wheelers can cope much more speedily with the difficulties funished by sandbanks than is the case with screw- propellers. If a stern-wheeler sits down on a sandbank it is mostly a matter of keeping the engines going astern for a time, and the violent wash caused by the paddles will excavate a channel ; the screw- propeller, on the other hand, simply digs a deep hole immediately under the stern, while at the same time it drives a lot of sand into the stern-tube ' bushings,' and grinds the shaft and bearers away in a fashion that is simply terrible from the engineer's point of view. " The reason why downstream journeys are more seriously delayed by sandbanks than those in the opposite direction is due to the fact that the banks gradually shelve upwards till their highest ridges are reached at the downstream ends ; and steamers, after being driven up the sloping bank a certain distance by virtue of their own speed, are driven on still further by the force of the descending current. On the other hand, a steamer going upstream strikes a sandbank with its own proper force reduced by that of the current instead of increased thereby, and, as a sandbank generally presents a steep face on its downstream side, the steamer either cuts through the crest or is pulled up sharp before it is seriously embedded." The altitude above sea-level of the Congo immediately below Stanley Falls is computed by Grenfell at 1,380 feet.' At the mouth of the Rubi River the altitude of the Congo is ' Some Belgian authorities cite the altitude of Stanleyville^ the town above the river bank, at 450 metres = 1,473 feet, perhaps an over-estimate. l6o. THE MISSION STEAMER "GOODWILL" BOW ON AT VARU>L (The figure on ihe upper deck lo the right is the late Consul Pickersgill.) THE RIVER CONGO 299 1,230 feet. The figures given by Grenfell for the height above sea-level of the Congo entering Stanley Pool are about 820 feet, and at the exit from the Pool as approximating 800 feet. The Belgian estimates are respectively about 935 feet and 915 feet. As they are connected with railway survey work they are more likely to be correct ; but the discrepancy is re- markable. The rate at which the Congo current flows varies very considerably ; it seems to depend somewhat upon the height of the river, and to be modified also by the contour of the channel. Generally speaking, the current is faster as one approaches the higher reaches. The fastest currents registered, except at points where exceptionally accelerated, have been in the neighbourhood of Basoko and beyond, and they have ranged from 300 to 350 feet per minute. Near Bopoto, accord- ing to season and location, the current ranges from 225 to 270 feet per minute ; lower down river the mean may be taken as 200 feet per minute. Some of the affluents flow at a slower rate, and range from a speed of 70 to 170 feet. At the point where the Kasai pours through its narrowed channel into the Congo, the current is not less than 600 to 700 feet per minute at the time of flood — about the same rate as that of the Congo itself as it flows out of the Pool round Kallina Point. In September the Congo runs into Lake Ntomba (at Ilebo) at about a mile an hour. On the Upper Congo each year is characterized by two flood seasons. May and November, prolonged respectively in some places to June and December. The maximum rise in the upper reaches towards Stanley Falls is about eight feet at both these elates.^ At Stanley Pool the rise in May is not so great, but in November and December it is nearly twice as much. The maximum rise here would seem to be nine feet. In January and February the water is falling everywhere over the Congo system. The Mubangi has commenced to fall in October, and by this time is near its minimum. At Stanley Falls the water commences to fall early in December, but at Stanley Pool the maximum is at times not reached till the close of the month. During the month of January the fall is very rapid, and by the end of the month the river is very low. In April there is a very general rise, and the Rubi-Loika and the Aruwimi approach their high-water marks. By May the Congo waters are so much hioher than those of the Mubanoi * "At Stanley Falls, the low water times are in August, September, and February. It is very high water in December." (Grenfell.) 300 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO that there is a flow of Congo water into the Mubangi through the Ibenga Channel and flowing northwards to o° 24' south of the Equator. The same thing occurs in the Ekinzi and Bwaiya channels communicating with the Sanga ; they serve, according to the relative heights of the waters of the San^a and the Congo, as outlets or inlets. As there are two high-water seasons, so also there are two seasons of low water, the second occurring- in Auofust and September ; and at some points these are the months of the lowest water of all the year. Along the further half of the upper river the rising and falling of the water is more conspicuous than further downstream, changes of two or three feet occurring in a day or so without persisting. At Bolobo and the Pool the rising and falling are most regular ; the rise seldom exceeds two inches per day, and the fall is rarely more than three inches in a similar period. This greater regularity is doubtless due to the fact that the inundated plains, thousands of square miles in extent, which are under water every season, act as storage reservoirs, as Lake Ntomba also does, alternately taking and o-ivincr the water as the river rises and falls.^ At Stanley Falls in Lat. 0° 30' N., January, June, and July are practically dry months. There is heavy rain in March, April, August, and September. At Stanley Pool (Lat. 3° 45' S.) the dry season is from May or June to October. The heavy rains here fall in November, December, February, and March. On the Equatorial Congo there may be rain in any month, but the heaviest downpour is in the spring and autumn. Very rarely there are inexplicable local droughts, such as that at Coquilhatville (Equator station) in 1895-6, which lasted for nine months without any rain, doing extraordinary damage to the forests. The average annual rainfall at places like Mobeka, Bopoto, and Basoko is not far short of one hundred inches. At Kwa- mouth it is about sixty inches, and at Stanley Falls between ^ In December 1894 the flood on the Mubangi River had risen so that the Zongo barrier was under water, and a steamer actually wound its way in and out amongst the houses of the village. At Bolobo at the end of November in this year (1894) the water was the highest on record. Ordinarily the maximum rise at Bolobo is between the 1st and 15th December. The natives of Bangala say that that district is flooded every four or five years. The river here is generally highest at the end of November. At Stanley Pool the fall to the minimum level began and continued in February and March. The level rose again early in April, and five or six feet in May and June. The second minimum was reached in the middle of July. The big rise commenced in August or September, continuing steadily up to December. In November 1903 the Ikelemba River was higher than it had been for six years. Green conferva; in the water show that it is rising. THE RIVER CONGO 301 eighty and ninety. These figures are only approximate. [The Rev. R. V. Glennie recorded the rainfall of Bolobo for one year in 1890. It was only fifty-six inches.] The riverain peoples of the Upper Congo between Stanley Pool and Stanley Falls may be catalogued as follows : — Beo'inninCT on the west, the north and south banks are occupied by sections of the Bateke people between Stanley Pool and the KwaTvasai. On the north (or west) bank of the Congo the Bateke extend further than on the south, and finally merge into the Babangi stock in the vicinity of the Lefini River. Otherwise they extend almost to the Kwango (so far as linguis- 161. THE VILLAGE OF LISALA, NEAR BOPOTO tic relations are concerned). Indeed, in this respect they are closely allied with the Bamfwm or Wambunu (Babundu) and the Babtmia of the lower Kwango and the Kwa-Kasai, and even with the Bayaka of the Kwango valley and the tribes of the lower Kasai and Kwilu. North of this outlet of the Kasai system, the right bank is occupied by " Bayanzi," overlying re- lated antecedent tribes such as the Banumi, Bamoye, Batende, Baktiti. [The Bakuti are perhaps pygmies.] On the north or west bank of the Congo, the people of Bateke connections seem to include the Bafuru at the back of the Babangi settlers. The Baloi alono^ the lower Mubangi and between that river and the Congo are related in lanouage to both the Babangi and the Bangala. Balolo (Bankundu, Mongo) people extend their range westwards to the Upper Congo at Coquilhatville, and also to the shores of Lake Ntomba, and thence across the Ruki and Lulongo rivers to the Lomami. North of this line they 302 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO extend quite near to the south bank of the main Congo. There would seem to be (according to Grenfel!) numerous indications of the presence of pygmy races, locally known as Bativa, Baputu, or Baj'HJubi, along the south bank of the Congo and between the Ikelemba, Chuapa, Maringa, and Lopori rivers. Lord Mount- morres and Holman Bentley both noticed red pygmies \_Biia] on the eastern shores of Lake Ntomba. The Bangala people [Bangala is a foreign nickname] on the banks of the Upper Congo, above Lulanga, offer many points of resemblance with the Bayanzi-Babangi in their physique, customs, and language. They may be taken to include most of the riverain inhabitants along the north bank as far as the mouth of the Rubi. Mainly along the south bank, opposite Mobeka and Bopoto, but also in the interior north of the main Congo, there are colonies or sections of the Ngombe tribe. The name Ngombe is unsatis- factory, since it may only mean " bush" or " interior" people : but it represents a considerable though scattered group of people to the north and south of the northern Congo with a very distinct language. East of the Rubi confluence with the Congo begin the Basoko peoples, to whom are allied in language the Bauiiga of the south bank, the natives of the lower Lomami [Topoke), the Lokele, BakusiL and Bafoino} of either side of the Congo as far east as the Lindi River and Stanley Falls. Immediately behind the Bakele on the north river-bank are the TtirtLinbii or Barumbu, the Baugobaiigo and Babali, extending respectively to the Aruwimi and the Lindi-Chopo. Along the lower Lindi at Balila are people related to the Bagenya of the Lualaba-Congo. The Bamboli dwellino- to the westward of the Baorenva are connected with that tribe in language and possibly in origin. On his earliest journeys in 1884-5 Grenfell remarked that when he reached Stanley Falls a decided change came over the Congo, if one was proceeding from the west eastwards. This change made itself noticeable in the flora and in the more rocky nature of the oround. o At various periods between 1885 and 1900 Grenfell visited the vicinity of Stanley Falls and explored the Lindi River and the Chopo, which enters the Lindi by an abrupt turn close to the Lindi confluence with the Congo. The Chopo is remark- able for its magnificent cascades where it descends abruptly from the hills which now begin to bound the Congo on the east. The Chopo Falls are at no great distance from Stanleyville, the ' Written incorrectly on the ethnographical map as Batoma. THE RIVER CONGO 305 State capital of this province, and from the large Roman Catholic Mission of St. Gabriel. The Baptist Missionary Society have long been settled at a station called Yakusu or " Sargent " (founded originally by Grenfell, and established by the Rev. W. H. White out of funds furnished by Mr. Sargent, of Bristol). As the Chopo Falls can be reached by water from the main Congo, they are frequently a rendezvous ^^^m^^^^m^^ '^wnti - J" -w for pleasant ■fln^^^^^£M|M|^'^' meetings and ^■tcsJ^^^BS^S^ v picnics by the missionaries of the two de- nominations and the State officials. Prior to 1900 Grenfell had ascended the River Lindi by steamer and canoes and had mapped it as far to the north- east as Kondo- lele, where the navisration of the river is ab- solutely inter- rupted by catar- acts. This stream, how- ever, has since been traced by Belgian explorers to its source, which is situated within scarcely more than a day's walk from the west coast of Lake Albert Edward. The general course of the Lindi River is not only remarkably parallel (somewhat in miniature) to the main course of the Aruwimi, but, except at its confluence with the Congo, is all along separated from it by a short interval of land. Grenfell remarked the absence of oil palms on the banks of the Lindi, though there was abundance of pandanus (the same species, no doubt, as is found in the rivers of Western Toro, Uganda, and in the Ituri Forest). 163. OFF YAKUSU BEACH 3o6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The Stanley Falls of the Lualaba-Congo consist of seven distinct cataracts, extended over a curving stretch of fifty-six miles in length. They are situated a few miles north of the Equator. There are stretches of twenty-six and twenty-two miles between the first two falls (reached from the west). The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh (counting from north to south) are all close together. Stanleyville, the Falls Station, is on the north or right bank of the Congo, immediately below the Falls, on an island (practically) which is bounded on the north by a narrow- inlet, the northern mouth of which makes an excellent quiet 164. A CORNER OF STANLEY FALLS haven for steamers. On the [highysouth bank from which rise red sandstone cliffs there are various commercial establishments. When the last of the seven cataracts has been passed (the journey from the western suburb of Stanleyville round the Falls is now made by railway) the traveller reaches the im- portant station of Ponthierville, named after a gallant Belgian officer who died about thirteen years ago in warfare against the Arabs. The railway from Stanleyville was carried out by the same group that so successfully built the line from Matadi to Stanley Pool. At Ponthierville navigation can be resumed. It is carried on ordinarily by means of large canoes which are paddled by THE RIVER CONGO 307 the river people native to this part of the Congo — the Baenya or Bagenya.^ In all this part of its course the general name of the Congo is Lualaba/' a name first revealed to us by Livingstone. In the middle of the Stanley Falls the Lualaba- Congo (as seen by the traveller journeying up its course) comes from almost due south, and this north-and-south course is continuous from the fourth degree of S. Latitude. Above this is a short bend running from south-east to north-west, and higher up the direction is north and south, past the junction with the Luapula and as far as the Lualaba-Lufira confluence. From Ponthierville southwards upstream, the Congo is 165. THK RAILWAY LINE ALONG THE LUALAHA-C( iN 1 ,1 i M \l; l'( tNTHIERVlLLE, OPPOSITE THE MOUTH OF THE LILU RIVER easily navigable as far as Kindu, a station which is practi- cally identical with the Riba-Riba of the Arabs. On the way the important affluent of the Lowa is passed, and further south the Lulindi. Both the Lowa and the Lulindi are navigable for a short distance eastwards from their confluence with the Congo. On the Lowa, steamer navigation is stopped by the rapids of Bangoka, near the junction of the Luvuto with the Lowa. Beyond that there are long stretches of river navigable by canoes. Grenfell seems in this way to have penetrated some distance up the main Lowa and the equally ^ Called by Stanley the Wenya or Wagenya. - Apparently originating in the Nyangwe district. This is varied as Riu'lrowa, Lualovva. 3o8 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO important Ozo River. On the Ozo (if I am correctly interpret- ing- notes on one of his maps) he reached the settlement of Boko, which is within about a hundred miles of Lake Albert Edward. Up the Lowa, which is the southern branch, he penetrated as far as the mountain of Monkela. Between this section of the Lualaba and the Lomami on the west the land is very swampy, and the many marshes are undoubtedly the remains of a former lake. Grenfell found the altitude of the Lomami at S. Lat. i° 30' to be only 1,493 ^^^^t. Between the Lowa and the Lulindi on the south there is lOO. SAW-MILLS ON THE RAILWAY BETWEEN STANLEY FALLS AND PONTHIERVILLE a considerable tract of marshy country, almost like an indefinite lake. This may represent the Lake Ozo of Arab reports which occasionally appeared on African maps in the 'seventies of the last century and was confused in the minds of geographers with the actual Lake Kivu. It is probable, however, that at one time there was a large shallow lake in this region, com- pletely separated from Lake Kivu, however, by a high mountain rancre, but united across the Cono-o with the Lomami Lake. Hereabouts is the country of Bulega, the people of which are of some ethnological interest, as their language is an outlying member of the Uganda -Tanganyika group, and sharply defined from the more corrupt Bantu tongues of the northern Congo basin. THE RIVER CONGO 309 At Kindu, nearly opposite Riba-Riba, a new line of railway is being constructed by the Belgians, which is to pass round the disturbed waters of the Conoco to the broad, lake-like river about twenty miles north of the Lukuga affluent and thence across the Congo to Tanganyika. Mr. Sutton Smith of the Baptist Mission (Yakusu) writes in a recent report : — • " At the railway works at Kindu I was gratified to see the evident desire on the part of officials to care for the well-being of the hundreds of native employes, and was shown houses which are being erected for their comfort. They intend to carry through the work as far as is 167. A TRAIN ON THE RAILWAY FROM STANLEY FALLS TO PONTHIERVILLE humanly possible with a minimum of sickness. All I saw at work looked strong, healthy, and happy. I was glad to find a Lokele youth there responsible for some lads who were brick-making, one who worked for me when building my house in 1904, and who attended our school. The official who took me round gave me a good report of him quite gratuitously, and readily consented to let me leave ten primers and ten reading-books with him to help some of his friends to learn to read."^ The Congo is still navigable in sections for canoes above Riba- Riba, as far south as the cataracts of Kibombo and Chambo near Nyangwe. The last-named rapids in the Buvinza country are 1 Grenfell accords warm praise to the conduct of the railway survey parties who were to examine the hne for a railway from Stanley Falls to Lake Albert Nyanza and on to Lado. So well conducted has Belgian railway work been in the basin of the Congo, generally under the supervision of Colonel Thys, that one is almost tempted to suggest that the Congo difficulty should be solved by Belgium selecting Colonel Thys as Governor-General over the whole of this region. 3IO GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO practically impassable, but above these the Congo spreads out to almost lake-like proportions on either side of Nyangwe. At Jakoba (the Hinde Rapids) the narrow river flowing through a deep gorge is quite unnavigable except by canoes in the flood season. Between Kasongo on the south and Stanley Falls on the north, no hill of any great eminence approaches close to the banks of the great river, which flows for the most part through park-like or even treeless country, covered nowadays with enormous rice-fields that have been started and carried on by the Arabs. But above Kasongo the highlands approach nearer and nearer to the river-banks, and in the Cameron Falls, begin- ning at the Fortes d'Enfer and Kongolo, the much-narrowed Congo flows between two mountain ridges (Cleveland and Dhanis), which are respectively 4,000 and 3,500 feet in altitude above sea-level. A great spur of mountain country — the Bam- bare Mountains — stretches in a north-westerly direction from the western shores of Tanganyika to the vicinity of Nyangwe. This hilly region is the original Manyema country, bounded on the north by the River Elila and on the south by the Luama. A high, broken plateau flanks the western coast of Tanganyika like a huge rampart, and has been carved here and there by rivers and rain into separate table-topped mountain ranges. Northwards from the Manyema country these become more peak-like and jagged, increasing in altitude till they attain heights possibly of 7,000 feet. They link up with the volcanic peaks of Mfumbiro (Virunga),^ and spread out like a fan as they approach the Sem- liki River and Lake Albert Edward on the east, the upper Lindi River on the north, and the Stanley Falls district on the west. Much of this reoion north of the Elila ooes bv the name of the Bulega country. This merges into Bukonjo, and further north still into Bukumu. The people of Bukumu (known by their neighbours as the Bakumu) are, in common with the closely allied VVamanga, not a race speaking a Bantu language. Bukonjo is a name applied by the present writer somewhat vaguely to the splendid mountain country inhabited in the greater part by the Bakonjo people, a race described in his work on the Uganda Protectorate. The Bakonjo extend to the north as far as the southern flanks of Ruwenzori and the western part of the Toro kingdom. South of Bulega, between the Lulindi and the Elila, is a district known as Bukombe. ' From 1 1,000 to 14,600 feet in height. Discovered by Speke in 1861 ; sighted by Stanley in 1S75 ; definitely explored by Count Goetzen in 1893, and again by Grogan and Sharpe in 1899, and by J. E. IVIoore (who ascended them) in 1900. THE RIVER CONGO 311 The present writer has had a g-limpse of this magnificent mountain reoion of Eastern Conoroland from the north to the o o west of the SemHki River. To him it seemed a veritable Land of Beulah. It is by no means over-forested, and has many rich Alpine pastures. It is therefore particularly well suited for the rearino- of cattle. This is the one res^ion of the Cons^o Free State which is legitimately open to white colonization. The native inhabitants are not very numerous (owing to the cold in the upper regions), the country is healthy, well watered, well wooded, and - I 1. - I - I I ' ' , , , .\ KEN STANLEY FALLS AND I'ONTHIliRVlLLE extremely fertile. For beauty of scenery it is reported to be one of the most notable parts of Africa. According to Grenfell, Nyangwe is at an altitude of 1,531 feet above sea-level.^ He computes the altitude of Kasongo, some thirty miles farther up the Congo, at thirty-nine feet higher than Nyangwe. As the altitude of the river below Stanley Falls may average 1,400 feet, there would thus be an ' He visited this place on the i6th of May 1903. His estimate of altitudes here as elsewhere differs considerably from the data given by Belgian explorers, but in regard to Nyangwe and Stanley Falls it would seem as though Grenfell were more nearly right. The Belgian altitude for Nyangwe is 550 metres= 1,803 feet, and obviously refers to high land near the banks and not to the level of the river. The Belgian altitude for Stanleyville is 1,473 feet 'is against Grenfell's 1,380 feet for the altitude of the river-level below the last of the Stanley Falls. The altitude of the Lomami at 1° 30' S. is 1,493 feet. 312 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO approximate descent in level over this long stretch of river of only 1 70-80 feet. The Cameron Falls and the adjacent Hinde Rapids^ con- stitute one of the most troubled sections of the Lualaba-Congo. Over a stretch of about fifty miles of river there are fifteen cataracts. The scenery here is very grand in places : the lower rocks like those of the Stanley- Pool -Manyanga Gorge, are stained purple-brown, indian-red, or even black with the iron in the water. In strikino- contrast are the bare islands and towering cliffs of white quartz. The groves of fine trees and flowering creepers add the grace of rich vegetation to fan- tastic Claude-like landscapes. Above the southernmost of 169. LUALABA-CONGO ABOVE STANLEY FALLS these falls, at Kongolo, the Lualaba is once more almost lake- like, and is navigable past the confluence of the Lukuga to the point where the Luapula joins the Lualaba, and onwards, upstream, to the south for another two hundred miles. Grenfell's researches do not seem to have extended beyond the northernmost of the Hinde Cataracts. For the convenience of the reader, however, who may wish to obtain a general apercu of the whole Congo basin, I will note the remaining points of interest about the southern Congo region. The Lukuga River (called Lumbiriji in its western course) is the outlet of Lake Tanganyika by a quite recent afterthought ' After Captain Sidney Hinde, who served the Congo Free State as a mihtary and medical officer in the campaign under Baron Uhanis against the Arabs, and who with Consul Mohun (U.S.A.) was the first to survey this piece of the river. THE RIVER CONGO 313 of nature. The short, narrow canal (Mitwanzi) which connects Tanganyika with the main Lukuga is not the principal branch of the river which rises on the north-west of the Marungu plateau. Tanganyika may have belonged once to the Nile system [more probably to the Victoria Nyanza inland sea], and have been cut off from Lake Albert Edward by the volcanic out- burst which lifted up that portion of the Rift valley containing Lake Kivu. The native legends about Tanganyika may indi- cate that these changes occurred only a few thousand years ago. Its Mitwanzi outlet is constantly choked with grass and weed. 170. I.UALABA-CONGO IN THE VICINITY OF NYANGWE At Ankoro, in about S. Lat. 6° 12', the Luapula (Luvua) unites with the Lualaba. Some geographical authorities prefer to consider the Lualaba (which above the Luapula confluence is sometimes known by the names of Kamulondo and Nzilo) as the head-stream of the Congo. This may be the case so far as volume of water is concerned, but certainly not as regards length of course. The honour of being the extreme upper Congo must be assigned to the Luapula, discovered or redis- covered^ by Livingstone in 1867. The ultimate source of the Luapula is really the head-stream of the Chambezi River, which ' The first intimation of the existence of this river is probably due to the Portuguese explorers Monteiro and Gamitlo in 1832. 314 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO rises a few miles south of the southern extremity of Tanganyika (in British Central Africa) in about Lat. 9° 10' S. Other sources of the Chambezi under the name of Chozi or Karungfu rise much further to the east, on the very edge of the Nyasa- Tanganyika plateau. The source of the Karungu, which perhaps for length should be really considered the upper Cham- bezi River, is within about forty miles of the north end of Lake Nyasa. The Chambezi flows into the south-eastern part of Lake Bangweulu, losing itself in the extensive marshes which mask the southern end of that lake and make it very difficult to define either in its limits or the exact course taken by the Lua- pula where it issues from Bangweulu. It is hardly, however. 171. A slAlh CANUE ON THE LUALABA-CONGO, BETWEEN PONTHI ERVILLE AND NVANGWE unreasonable to consider the Chambezi as the upper Luapula, and Lake Bangweulu as a vast backwater of the infant Congo. Once the Luapula is clear of the marshy region of Bangweulu (its altitude above sea-level where it issues from the lake is about 3,675 feet). It makes a deep bend south,^ and then curves round abruptly west and north, flowing through a mountainous country with numerous cataracts. The troubled water ends for a time at the Johnston Falls,- from which point the Luapula is navigable through a marshy region into Lake Mweru. The ^ The source of the southernmost affluent of the Luapula [and consequently the southernmost point of the Congo basin] is placed (approximately) in S. Lat. 13° 30'. ^ These falls w ere discovered by Sir Alfred Sharpe in 1892, and named after the present writer, who at that time was administering British Central Africa. Sir Alfred Sharpe also discovered the brackish Mweru Swamp to the east of the large lake. This swamp overflows into the Kalungwizi River, and thus into the big Lake Mweru. Livingstone discovered both Bangweulu and Mweru (1868 and 1867). Mweru was first correctly surveyed and mapped by (Sir) Alfred Sharpe (1890-2), and Bangweulu by Captain Giraud (1883), and by Captain Weatherly (1894-7). THE RIVER CONGO 315 Luapula where it leaves Lake Mweru (altitude above sea-level about 3,000 feet) ^ takes sharp twists and turns, and flows through a mountainous country. So far as it has been explored it is navigable for about fifty miles above its junction with the Lualaba. As its altitude at this point is only approximately 1,780 feet, it is obvious that over a course of about [80 miles from the north end of Lake Mweru to its emeroence into the plain at Kiambi the Luapula descends 1,220 feet, in what must be a perfect millrace. 172. ON LAKE BANGWEULU The Lualaba, on the other hand, between Ankoro and Lake Kasale has a slow current, and flows through a swampy region beset with many lakes and pools. Here no doubt was once a large lake, three or four times the size of Bangweulu. The Lualaba would appear to be navigable for small steamers or at any rate for canoes as far up its course as Kazemba, near the Kambudi Falls. Above that again (where the river bears the local name of Nzilo) there are many cataracts, usually known as the Delcommune Falls, after their discoverer, A. Del- ^ The observations of Sharpe and others give to Lake Mweru an altitude above sea-level of 3,1 16 feet ; but the Belgian observers reduce the altitude to 900 metres — 2,949 feet. 3i6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO commune. The source of the Lualaba is double or treble. The river rises from both eastern and western flanks of the moun- tain range of Chafukuma, almost as far south as the 12° S. Lat., at an altitude of about 5,000 feet. The Lualaba receives on the far south-west an important affluent known as the Lubudi ; but it is also joined at Lake Kasale by a river — the Lufira — almost as important in length of course and volume as the Lualaba itself. There is in fact the most remarkable reversed resemblance between the direction and course taken by the Lualaba (Nzilo) and the Lufira, almost as though one 173. JOHNSTON FALLS, LUAPULA RIVER were the mirror of the other. Both rise ultimately within a few miles of each other on the slopes of Mount Chafukuma. Between the Lualaba and the Lufira is the important country of Katanga, remarkable for its mineral wealth, and amongst many other interesting features, for its cave-dwellers. A few miles from the source of the Lualaba rises a cone-shaped hill about 300 feet high, formed (according to Torday) entirely of magnetic ore. On the slopes of this hill are cave-dwellers belonoincr to the Basango tribe. Even a section of the Alunda race has taken to living in caves to the west of the Lualaba. On the banks of the Dikulue (the river which with the Lufira practically encloses the district of Katanga proper) the Bena Mutumba are cave-dwellers, and seem to have been THE RIVER CONGO 317 so always. Paul Le Marinel calls these people the Bena Kabombo, and states they are few in number, very wild, have no huts inside caverns, and have only quite recently taken to agriculture. Hitherto they were hunters pure and simple, and they seem to have some affinities with the Bushman type in the lofty Kunde-irungo (Kundelungu, Kwandelungu) Mountains, which stretch between the Luapula and the Lufira. The Balomotwa tribe live in passages of great depth hollowed out in the mountain side, the entrances to which appear like tiny gates of Egyptian temples, excavated in the perpendicular faces of the red cliffs.^ The south-eastern corner of the Congo Free State is in fact a relatively lofty plateau from 2,500 to 3,000 feet above sea- level, rising on every side to altitudes of 4,000 to 6,000 feet. This plateau has been carved by water into ranges and clumps of table-topped mountains following a general direction of S.W. to N.E. The boundary of the southern watershed of the Congo (and the northern watershed of the Zambezi) is represented by a huge earth-wrinkle running for the most part in an east and west direction, almost at right angles to the courses of the rivers which flow on either side of it to the north or south. This region is much more like a chain of mountains than the broken plateau to the north, but the altitudes are nowhere very re- markable, the highest point being either Mount Kamea (a ridge or massif from whose flanks rise the Lulua, Lubudi, or Zambezi) or Mount Chafukuma. Either of these mountains may be 5,600 feet in altitude, more or less. Livingstone was not far wrong instinctively when he thought in the Chambezi, Bangweulu, and Tanganyika he had found the Fountains of the Nile. The researches of M. Wauters, based on Belgian and British explorations, show that the long, diaQonal ranoe of the Mitumba mountains once limited the Congo basin on the south-east. The Lubudi was the real source of the Congo. The infant Lualaba and its lake Kinyata united north-eastwards with the Juo lake of the Lufira, and this again with Mweru and the mountain Luapula. The waters of the Chambezi- Bangweulu-Luapula found their way into Tan- ganyika at Mpala. And Tanganyika, before the blocking of the Albertine Rift valley of the Virunga volcanoes and the breach of the Mitwanzi-Lukuga gorge, sent its waters to the Nile, at any rate to the vast inland sea of the Victoria Nyanza. 1 Dr. Cornet was the first to draw attention to these Balomotwa cave-dwellers, whom he discovered in 1892. See page 726. 3i8 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The country of Katanga has been the scene of operations of a concessiomiaire company, mainly British in its direction, and is a land that has long been famous by report for its mineral wealth. Katanga was heard of by the early Portuguese explorers, Lacerda, the Pombeiros, Gra9a, INIonteiro, and Gamitto, at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. Livingstone in 1854 sent reports of it from Arabs who had already reached the territories of the Mwata Yanvo in 1853, and he obtained more precise informa- tion as to this land of malachite, copper, and gold on his last journeys between 1867 and 1873. Katanga was first explored to any extent by the missionary F. S. Arnot in 1882-4, Its southern borders were traversed and accurately mapped by Capello and Ivens in 1884-5. The Arabs must have reached Katanga at a relatively early date in their Central African adventures, probably long before they discovered and settled on the Lualaba. Apparently they were drawn in this direction by the Bisa traders. This tribe of the Babisa (as related by the present writer in other works on Africa) played a very important part in the development of South-Central Africa. Their own habitat lies to the south and east of Lake Banorweulu ; but somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century they had got into touch with the Portuguese on the central Zambezi (being further influenced by the passage through their territories of Portuguese expeditions), and had begun to organise caravans of their own to proceed to the Mozambique coast. By this trade with the Portuguese they acquired guns, and thus became bold in their relations with surrounding tribes. On their return journeys from the coast to the interior they drew the Arabs back with them, Arabs (of a very negroid type) having been settled on the east and south-east coasts of Africa from time immemorial. Thus the Arabs throuoh the Bisa territories arrived in Katanga and the lands of Lunda some twenty years before they had estab- lished a direct overland route from Zanzibar to Tanganyika and Tanganyika to the Upper Congo. ^ What attracted the attention of the Arabs more especially in exploring Katanga was the presence of malachite. This beautiful green stone was exported by them in large quantities to Zanzibar. Partly owing to Arab influence and guns, a negro adven- turer, Msidi or Msiri, actually a native of the Western Unyam- 1 The Zanzibar Arabs reached Tabora (Unyamwezi) in 1830, and Ujiji (Tan- ganyika) in 1840. THE RIVER CONGO 319 wezi country, east of Tanganyika, whose father was a former follower of the Arabs — established himself with a rabble of Wanyamwezi fighting men as supreme chief over the Katanga country about the years 1866-1870.^ F. S. Arnot, a missionary of the Plymouth Brethren, after his first voyage of discovery in 1884, settled with a number of his colleagues at the court of Msiri, and one of these missionaries, Crawford, became in some way a secretary or adviser to Msiri, while C. A. Swan made use of his opportunities to study and illustrate the local language, which he styled Chiluba. Through the presence of these English and Scottish missionaries in Katanga, the country had become somewhat inclined towards a political connection with the British at the time when there were rumours of a British Protectorate over Nyasaland. The subsequent history of this movement will be related in another chapter, but the strong interest taken by the British in the development of Katanga was to a certain extent recognized by the King of the Belgians in granting far-reaching conces- sions to an Anglo- Belgian Company, which is now endeavour- ing to connect Katanga by a direct railway with the port of Lobito Bay on the Atlantic coast of Angola. West of Katanga and the watershed of the Lualaba-Lubudi, the mountainous character of the country somewhat diminishes, except for the well-marked ridge of the Zambezi-Congo water- parting. The south-western limits of the Congo Free State are the special domain of the Lulua and Kasai rivers, which with their tributaries flow northwards in almost parallel direc- tions through the lands of the former Lunda empire. The mountainous character of the Katangra regfions has to a g^reat extent preserved the pristine savagery of the land and of its in- habitants ; but the Lunda territories (which extended at one time along the course of the Luapula to Lakes Mweru and Bangweulu)^ have long been, as it were, trampled by man, their forests abated, and a good deal of cultivation and even a slightly European civilization introduced, long before the white man came there to rule. Between the Lulua, the Sankuru, and the Lomami is a densely forested region which extends southwards to about ^ He called his kingdom, Garenganze. ^ At some period about one hundred and fifty years ago the Mwata Yanvo of Lunda extended his conquests across the Luapula to Lake Mweru. On the upper Luapula he established a viceroy (" Kazembe "), and a small section of the Lunda people remained there in a Lunda kingdom of some strength until the British power was established in these regions by Sir Alfred Sharpe in 1892-9. 320 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Lat. 6°. To the west and south of this crreat Sankuru forest, the Lunda influence, stretching at one time from the south-west coast of Tanganyika right across to the frontiers of Angola, has not only dismantled the country of its woods, except in the deep river valleys, but has considerably affected the wild game. Across the Lunda belt, the Bantu civilization, coming no doubt round the south end of Tanganyika from the direc- tion of Uganda, early perfected hunting methods through the use of iron weapons, and from the end of the eighteenth century on- wards, guns and gunpowder derived from the Portuguese assisted this more enterpris- ing people in k i 1 1 i n o- e 1 e - phants and all the larger mammals. The L I^KMM ^^hdLk ''^^^Ki'^HVfld Lunda coun- ^ #^WvWM^^Hfc -^Klii^^fflHnl tries, therefore, are most disap- pointing at the present day «from the point of view of the bia--Qame hun- ter. But within the basin of the Lualaba, below its junction with the Luapula, and also between the Lualaba and south-west Tanganyika (including all the lower course of the Luapula), there still remains one of the finest big-game countries in the world : swarms of antelopes, large herds of buffalo (in spite of the devastations of the cattle plague twenty years ago), rhinoceros, lion, zebra, and giraffe. The western extension of many of these beasts is arrested by the mountainous country which separates the basin of the Lualaba from that of the Lomami and the Sankuru ; but the lion is found in the basin of the Lulua-Kasai and extends its ranoe in the Kasai region as far north as 6° S. Lat. or even farther, where there is no dense forest. 174. i kmale of the keh forest kuffalo (bos gaffer nanus) From the forest region of S. Central Congoland. (Shot on one of Grenfell's expeditions). THE RIVER CONGO 321 South-Eastern Congroland is also much richer in obvious bird life — especially in aquatic birds — than the western and northern regions. The present writer in his work on British Central Africa has dilated on the almost fabulous abundance of storks, herons, flamingoes, pelicans, cranes, ibises, geese, and ducks at the south end of Lake Tanganyika. Captain Hinde describes the grassy flats along the lower Luapula as being-, literally covered with flocks of spur-winged geese. The rainfall of Southern Congoland and of the Lualaba- Congo does not vary so much as in the northern and western divisions of the Congo Free State. It probably amounts to an annual average of seventy inches. Between Stanley Falls and Nyangwe the an- nual rainfall ranges from about eighty to seventy inches. Between Nyangwe and Lake Mweru it is about seventy inches. The rain- fall in Katanga, on the Nyasa - Tan - ganyika plateau, Bangweulu, and Southern Congo- land in general is about sixty inches per annum. But between the Lomami, the Kasai, and the Lukenye River on the north and the sixth degree of S. Latitude on the south — in short, over the forest region of South-Central Congoland — the rainfall is more like ninety inches per annum. Accordinor to Grenfell, the Lualaba - Concjo reaches its greatest height between April and May and its lowest water about September, with another considerable rise in December, which begins to decrease in January. The peoples^ of this region may be enumerated as ' In any enumeration of the peoples of Eastern Congoland the Arab element must be taken into account. In the upper valley of the Aruwimi, between the Lindi and the Lomami, the Swahili Arabs of Zanzibar and their Manyema allies have Muhammadanized and disciplined such of the native population as they did not exterminate. Of the large, thriving townships above Stanleyville Lord Mountmorres writes : "The scene might well be laid in Morocco. . . . Arab dress and general civilization." The same writer gives a very encouraging description of the Arabized population I. — Y 175. RED RIVER HOG FROM S. CENTR.\L CONGOLAND 322 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO fpllows : On the upper Lindi and Chopo rivers, and on either side of the Congo from Stanley Falls to the Maiko River (which enters the Congo at Yamba-Yamba), even further south along the course of the Congo up to Ponthierville, is found a very interesting and somewhat mysteri- ous people, the Ba- manga or Waman- ga. There is only a slight difference between the speech of the Bamancra and the western- most Bakumu, but these names can- not be regrarded as mere alternative appellations for the same people, as Stapleton sup- posed. The real Bakumu to the north-east and east of the Bamanga are dwarfish tribes speaking very de- based Bantu dia- lects, whereas the Bamanga and the river Bakumu are — as the Rev. W. H. Stapleton was the first to discover — a tall, stalwart race non- Bantu in language. The Bamanga are the only example of a and of such Zanzibar Arabs that remain in the eastern regions of the Congo between the Stanley Falls and the British and German frontiers. The chiefs and notables are intelligent and well conducted. All read and write (in the Arabic character), and are well versed in the Koran, of which, as of other Muhammadan devotional books, there are always copies in each village. " I engaged several of the Arab chiefs I met in conversation, and was astonished to find that they had a good rudimentary know- ledge of general geography. . . . They were, in fact, in a way a civilized people. In all the larger villages Muhammadan schools are established, attendance at which is compulsory by all the children by order of the chiefs. . . . The men are all dressed in the traditional Muhammadan robes of spotless cleanliness . . . most devout and rigorous in their observance of their religion. . . . Their womenkind are neither veiled nor cloistered, but are all well clothed in a simple robe of bright colours from the shoulders to the feet, and are treated with a degree of respect and consideration far ahead of that prevailing amongst Africans generally. The largest Arab village of all that I came across was that in the neighbourhood of Avakubi." 176. AN ARAB TRADER IN NORTH-EAST CONGOLAND (Originally from Zanzibar.) THE RIVER CONGO 32: non- Bantu people reaching the main course of the Conoo, thouoh the allied Bondonoa of the eastern Mon- O gala basin come very near. It is with these — the Ndonoa or Bondonoa — that the Bamanoa are closest allied in speech. Other, but far more distant affinities, lie in the direction of Mbuba- Momvu, Maribettu, and Mundu. But the Bamanga- Ndonga speech is extremely isolated. There are indications in place names that it preceded the Bantu in Eastern Equatorial Africa, but the Bamano-a themselves seem to be recent invaders of the north-east Congo forest region, and to have pushed down through and over Bantu- speaking tribes till they reached the main Congo between Stanley Falls and Ponthierville. They extend at present a very short distance west of the ConCTo. In common with the Bakumu and Lokele they wear the " pelele " or lip-ring, like the Balese of the Ituri forests. As already mentioned, the interesting Bagenya people were traced by Grenfell to as far north as the lower Lindi, up to Balila.^ They are the river people all along the course of the Lualaba- Congo, from Stanley Falls southwards to beyond Nyangwe, where they are succeeded by the Wangobelio (or Waiijabilio). In origin and lan- guage they seem to be allied to the Manyema. A good deal of the course of the middle and lower Lomami is occupied by peoples whose speech connects them with the Balolo group of central Congoland. The Batetela of the upper Lomami are a warlike race related to the Man- yema. Then, southwards, we come to the great domain of the Basongo and Basonge, who appear to belong linguistically to the same group as the Bakuba : indeed the Basonge or " Zappo-zaps " (as they are nicknamed) are almost identical with the Bakuba. Between the Lualaba-Congo below its junction with the Lilu or Leopold River and the eastern frontier of the State, there are collections of peoples speaking ' Grenfell says they are also known as Bagengela and adds this note about them (presumably ) : " Houses above Ponthierville are round huts with conical roofs. The people wear their hair braided in fillets. They have dog-teeth collars, and kauri ornaments on the leather flaps worn over the posterior." 177. A WOODEN WHISTLE FROM THE MANVEMA COUNTRY 324 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO very pure Bantu languages, like the Ba/ega, Balengola, Bate7nbo, and Bavinza. These are connected linguistically with the Ban- konjo and Awa-rundi of the Uganda and German- East- Africa frontiers. They seem to be a recent invasion from these regions. Otherwise, the "pure Bantu" migration towards Congoland from the original Bantu home on the White Nile and the Victoria Nyanza seems to have skirted the eastern shore of Tanganyika, possibly crossing it at certain points in canoes, and to have first attacked the Congo basin from the south-east. The Manyenia, still occupying the region north of the Luama River, have extended under the name of Bakusu across to the Lomami, and seem to be connected linguistically with 178. EUTROPIUS GRENFELLI, A FISH OF THE UPPER CONGO DISCOVERED BY GRENFELL (This is a much smaller form than the extraordinary E. Intice/is.) the Batetela, the Bagenya, and even the Basoko and Lokele tribes of the Aruwimi-Cono;o. The BasJiha and Kabwari people of north-west Tanganyika speak a somewhat distinctive form of Bantu language, related equally to the Uganda family and to the Luba group. The Bariia, Tiisango, Batnbuli, Batabwa^ and Batembo of the south-west coast of Tanganyika and the regions between that lake and the upper Lomami are connected, linguistically at any rate, with the Luba congeries of people. So also are the Bakundu and Balomotwa of S.W. Mweru, though physically these two last tribes are said to suggest the incorporation of an old Bushman strain. The Basanga of Katanga ; the Bakzvcsi, Baliibende, and Basaniba 'The leading language of this region, Kitabwa, has been profoundly studied by Dr. Auguste Van Acker. THE RIVER CONGO 325 of the mountainous regions of the Lubudi-Lualaba tableland also belong to the Luba group. The Baraniba, Kaponda, and Balala of the south-eastern projection of the Congo basin are related in language to the Ba-ila (Mashukulumbwe) of Northern Zambezia, and throuoh them with the far- reach i no- Tonoa- Subiya group of Central and South-Western Zambezia. Finally, to complete the enumeration of the leading tribes along the whole course of the Congo may be mentioned the Ba-hemba (Ba-emba, Aw'emba) between the south-west extremity of Tanganyika (Itawa) and the Chambezi ; A-lunda of Eastern Mweru, the VVa-kisinga of N. Bangweulu, the warlike Ba-husi or Wa-usi of the upper Luapula, the Aiva-bisa of the lower Chambezi, and the Awa-ivhva, Awa-nyannvanga, A-ma7nbzve, and A-lungii of the Nyasa-Tanganyika plateau and the head- waters of the Chambezi. CHAPTER XIV THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES IN the autumn of 1902 Grenfell applied himself systemati- cally to the exploration of the Aruwimi River.' The primary condition of Robert Arthington's dona- tion had been that the Baptist Mission Society should link up with some other kindred missionary society advancing from the east, so that there might be a continuous chain of mission stations from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean founded and maintained on analogous principles. It was Grenfell's desire to fulfil this idea by establishing three or four mission stations along the Aruwimi-Ituri until he was within easy reach of the westernmost post of the Church Missionary Society in the province of Toro (Uganda)." As regards the exploration of the Aruwimi, he never of course met with the sliphtest obstacle from the Belgian authorities, but he was refused permission to acquire sites for mission stations east of the northernmost Congo. It is scarcely necessary to point out that in maintaining this refusal at Brussels the supreme Government of the Congo State com- mitted a breach of the Act of Berlin. By November 1902 Grenfell had travelled eastwards as far as Mawambi on the Aruwimi, that is to say, to within eighty miles of the most western outpost of the Uganda Protectorate. • A reference has already been made in this book to the large bequest made to the Baptist Missionary Society by Robert Arthington, the philanthropist of Leeds. Mr. Arthington, it will be remembered, had practically started the whole Congo Mission of this Society in 1877, although many other people subscribed to its funds after he had furnished the means for its commencement. It was however laid down in Mr. Arthington's will that his bequest should only be applied to new work, to the founding ot new stations, the undertaking of new explorations and new extensions from existing centres of work. The Ijequest to the London Missionary .Society is governed b\- the same conditions. '■^ An alternative plan was to advance up the Lualaba-Congo to British Central Africa and then join hands with the London Missionary Society. For this reason Grenfell explored the great river as far as the Hinde Rapids in 1903 (?and 1905), as related in the previous chapter. 326 THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 3^7 Here he stopped. A portion of his experiences are related characteristically in a letter to Mr. A. H. Baynes, dated from Yaleniba, November 15th 1902 : — "I returned to Yalemba yesterday (November 14th 1902), having succeeded in reaching Mawambi on the last day of October. Mawambi figures on some maps as Kilonga-Conga's, and is about eighty miles west of the British frontier, and a few miles more from the newest Church Missionary Society's outposts in Toro. As the only natives in the neighbourhood of Mawambi are Wambote (the dwarfs), whom the C.M.S. very distinctly regard as coming within the range of their future operations, I count myself as having reached the C.M.S. sphere, and as liaving passed beyond my range as a pioneer of the Baptist Missionary Society. Mawambi, as in 1887 when H. M. Stanley visited it, is a considerable settlement of Arabized Africans ; but from the 179. THE POST OF .A.VAK.UBI, LOOKING DOWN THE ARUWIMI RIVER, ACROSSBC.itJ THE ISLAND IN FRONT OF THE STATION (It was near Avakubi that Grenfell wished to found a station.) position of an independent power in this country, as it was in the time of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, it has been subjected to and is administered by a military post. The Arabs and their dependents number two to three thousand, and their vocation as raiders and slave- dealers having gone (they have practically depopulated the country of all the people except the dwarfs), they have become auxiliaries of the State, and subsist on their earnings as carriers of the loads required by the Government at the south end of Lake Albert and the north end of Lake Albert Edward at distances of twelve and ten marches respectively." [Here follow passages complaining of the refusal of the Belgian authorities to allow the Baptists to acquire a site for a mission station on the Aruwimi. Then succeeds a report on the spread of education among the mission boys or students, some of them natives of the Aruwimi district, who had since gone out as teachers among their fellow-country- 328 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO "Bungudi Daniele and Disasi Libondu worked well, and created quite a favourable impression among the natives. Alphabet sheets were at first a mystery, and the magic-lantern slides a positive source of terror ; but after a while the letters were understood as the keys to the white man's stores of knowledge locked up in books, and the Scripture History pictures on the lantern sheet became the texts for many an attentively regarded lesson. ... I found as I came down the Aruwimi that the good impression created by the Peace amongst the people had made its way six or seven days' journey upstream. . . . " Baluti and his two companions . . . have been able to tell the people something of our message, and they now understand very clearly what our object is. The children, however, as I find them everywhere, are very anxious to learn to read. ' The Arab reads, the white man reads,' and they feel they too must learn to read if they are to escape the disadvantages of their present position. Education is thus at quite a premium already, and the sooner we can put the Gospels in their hands as class books, the sooner we shall have commenced sowing the seed in the same m inner that has elsewhere been so widely blest. " With a view to getting to know something of the languages spoken in the country through which I have passed, I have brought down with me twelve youths of the three principal tribes, some of wjiom in years to come we may hope will be messengers or will help others to be messengers to their people. On the understanding that they were to work half the day and go to school the other half, it seemed as though I could have got any number I liked, and many were cruelly disappointed because I could not take them — some of them absolutely cried ! As soon as ever they have learnt one or other of our school languages I trust we may be able to put them under the care of a brother mission- ary who with linguistic instincts will be able to gather valuable vocabu- laries, hints as to the construction of the languages.^ They have already commenced their schools under two teachers who have arrived at Bolobo with us. One of these under my wife's guidance gives lessons to the girls on board the Peace and the Bristol, and the other teaches these twelve boys to whom I have referred, and a few other boys. "You may be interested to hear that I joined the railway track of the Great Lakes Railway, already pegged out by the engineers between the Congo and the Nile, at a point about 120 miles west of the Ikitish frontier, and followed it for 40 miles till I turned back at Mawambi. This suggests many thoughts, and opens out wide possibilities for the future ; but however wide these possibilities may become in the future, we have, spread out before us, wide areas the circumstances of which ' This work was undertaken by the late Rev. W. H. Stapleton (though far from com- pleted at the time of his death), with results that are mentioned in this book. Grenfell seems, in his notes, to indicate that along the lower Aruwimi, west and north of the Basoko dialects, the leading language is "Ndaka" or '• Mondaka," spoken between the Aruwimi and Lulu by the following tribes : Bemberi, Bafwakiba, Bavwatende, Babeki, Babesoa, Bavwalola, Babutambili, Ba\ vvakoa, Ba\ \vasei, Awamazoa, Basiri, Babunda, Bameni, and Bavika. Surveying the country from Mawambi he notes : "VVanandi people to the south" (compare this with my own notes on Banande in the Uganda Pro/ecioraie), " Balese to the north of Mawambi, Walende (? Lendu) and Bambisa to the north and east." THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 331 will remain unmodified, fields for our energies towards which we have long been looking. . . ."'^ In a letter to a correspondent at the end of October 1902 Grenfell writes : — " A week ago we were camped near the Nepoko River, and received a visit from some dwarfs, some of the westernmost wanderers of this more or less nomad tribe. They are queer little folk, and live very largely by their wits, as well as by their nimbleness as hunters. Though so much inferior in the matter of strength to the settled natives of the country, they are much feared, because of their cunning, and for the unfailing revenge which they take for every injury they sustain. 'One of the groups was evi- dently a sort of min- strel band, for after they had gone through their music and danc- ing for our amusement (and their profit) we heard them later on giving the same per- formance in two other villages on the oppo- site side of the river. The music was only one degree less re- markable than the dancing. One of the refrains was strikingly pretty, consisting of a sort of round, produc- ing an effect like that of beautifully toned 181. a chapel built by native mission boys bells in the distance. at bolobo The second effort was much less elaborate, consisting of two chords only, and must have been copied from a bird's song in the woods. It ' With regard to the attempts of Grenfell and Stapleton (and other Baptist missionaries) to teach natives to give direct instruction to their fellow-countrymen. Lord Mountmorres, in his Report on the "Congo Independent State" (Williams and Norgate, 1906), writes an interesting passage. He describes how amongst the timid savages between the Lomami and the Lualaba-Congo, "a small boy, a native pupil of Mr. Stapleton's at Yakusu, has at last accomplished that which Government officials and white missionaries alike have been powerless to achieve. He has awakened in these people (the natives of the left bank of the Congo near Stanleyville) a desire to improve themselves ; and daily I saw the boy inside one of the inclosures sitting surrounded by its entire inhabitants, while he taught them, children and adults alike, to read and reckon from first primers. It would be difficult to arrive at the exact age of this little reformer, but I do not think he could have been more than eight years old. It ought to be mentioned that it is no solitary instance of this kind of thing, that I found another small boy, again a pupil of Mr. Stapleton's Baptist mission, carrying knowledge and enlightenment in the same way to another village at which I touched close to the mouth of the Lomami." 332 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO was decidedly effective. The third I hardly know how to describe — it was a medley of hand-clacking (not clapping) and vocal tones that resembled nothing else so much as a troop of tropical frogs, and when I tell you that new-comers have mistaken the croaking of our frogs for the chorus of a covey of ducks it will help you to realize that the Congo frog is an as- tonishing advance on the home-bred variety as a croaker ! " The dancing was done by the head-man of the party (they num- bered about a dozen, including two babies) ; and it is even more difficult to describe than the music. A few preliminary paces hav- ing been made, Azim- bambuli, the dancer, received from the hands of one of the onlookers a burning stick, just taken from the fire. It was about fifteen inches long, and was more than three inches thick. The blazing end was nearly half the total length, and was thoroughly alight, the extreme end being reduced to a point in the fire — it w as a live pyramid of fire. I expected when I saw it placed in his hands that he would continue to dance till its condition was con- siderably modified ; but within twenty seconds, and after looking at it as he grasped it in both hands in a most quizzical manner from various points of view, and vigorously blow- ing upon a certain portion of it, he suddenly applied his capacious tongue to a surface which an instant before had been all aglow, and we perceived a very considerable dark patch as the result. After one or two sundry jumps and whirlings of the brand in the air, he made a snap at the point of it with his teeth, and broke it off, allowing it to fall still glowing on the floor. Some grimaces, rubbing of the stomach for the sake of effect, was followed by a few more gyrations, 182. TWO BAMBUTU PYGMIES, AZ 1 M DAM 1 ;ULI AND ABUMBUKU THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 333 more applications of the capacious tongue and teeth, more blowing, whirling of the stick, and dancing, and in less than three minutes the firebrand was reduced to a dead, black stump. " Of course such an exhibition greatly impressed the onlooker, but I have no doubt that cunning Azimbambuli knew just the right moments and place for applying tongue and teeth without much personal discomfort. This much is certain, that he had barely finished with stick No. i when No. 2 was handed to him, and I left him repeat- ing the performance. . . . The dancer measured just four feet six and a half inches, and his companion was half an inch less. One of the women was a little under four feet. They are evidently in a very degraded condition, but I am told that Azimbambuli's poor old blind mother is carried from camp to camp in all their wanderings, so they thus give pleasing evidence of belonging to the family after all ! You know, I think, that the C.M.S. has already planned for a mission among these interesting little folk, and I am therefore getting to the limits of our future work, if I have not already reached them. If, however, the rail- way between the Congo and the Nile should be completed, it may become easier to reach the Dwarf country from the west than from the east. . . ." It is only fair to say that in 1902 Grenfell found the adminis- tration of native affairs in the Aruwimi district greatly improved as compared to that of 1894 (for example): in which year he visited the lower Aruwimi and noted grave abuses of authority, chiefly by persons representing recently founded concessionnaire companies. He had been given all possible facilities for visiting this and other regions by Major Malfeyt, the representative of the Congo Independent State (Inspecteur d'Etat) at Stanleyville. On his return from his 1902 journey he addressed a letter to Major Malfeyt, of which some extracts may be interesting : — " Yambuya, Aruwimi, " \ 2th November IQ02. " M. LE Major Malfeyt, " Inspecteur d'Etat, etc. etc., Stanleyville. Monsieur : " I have just returned to this place after a journey to Mawambi. I take this the first opportunity of thanking you for the facilities accorded to me by your kind letters of introduction. You will be glad to know that I have made the journey under the best possible condi- tions, and that the transport system, which has been organized, was working with such smoothness that I found food and transport and a good rest-house awaiting me at the end of every stage. These matters in no instance caused me the least anxiety. By the officers and agents of the State I have been everywhere welcomed in the most cordial manner, and especially by M. le Capitaine (name illegible) and Lieu- tenant SifTert, to whom when the occasion serves I hope you will make known my high appreciation of the kindness and consideration they manifested on my behalf, as well as my grateful thanks for the help they rendered in the carrying out of my plans. 334 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " It was a source of sincere pleasure to me to see the colonies of the time-expired men^ at Banalya. Their neat, well-kept houses and the air of contentment that reigned were most inspiring. To find these communities so advanced on the high road to civilization in this far- away place, right in the centre of the continent, is a most important and encouraging fact. Another very gratifying fact I note is the evidence which crossed my path as to the regime of the civil law having been extended as far as the Nepoko, and this in a country which still so plainly bears the marks of the Arab domination a few years ago. That the upper Ituri does not yet enjoy the same ad\-antages is easily under- stood by those who know the circumstances ; but the railway and the 183. THE VILLAGE OF THE BANALYA COLONY OF TIME-EXPIRED SOLDIERS OF THE CONGO STATE developments which are being undertaken will soon result, I doubt not, in the passing away of the old order of things, and in this part of the province also being brought within the range of the Civil Code and its attendant benefits. . . . " My journey has been a most instructive and a very pleasant one — the only sad feature of it being the district east of the Lenda River, where the complete absence of population and the abundant clearings told most plainly of the devastation resulting from the old-time Arab domination, and called up a picture of the sorrows it must have inflicted over this wide district. . . . " With very sincere respect, " Faithfully yours, "George Grenfell." ' This is interesting testimony, as several years previously the Congo State system of establishing these soldier colonies was severely and — as it turns out — un- fairly criticized. Like Grenfell, Lord Mountmorres and Mrs. William Forfeitt, B.NLS., have reported favourably on the villages formed by the retired soldiers of the State, "on their spotless cleanliness, the extent and excellence of their plantations." (H. H. J.) THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 335 I will now attempt to give a description of the Northern tributaries of the Congo from notes collected by Grenfell, William Forfeitt, Torday, and various Belgian authorities. The Aruwimi, under the names of Shari, Abumbi, Ituri, Luwere, Biyere, Mbinga, rises with many contributory streams on the southern slopes of a knot of mountains named after Speke, Emin, Schweinfurth, and Junker, about thirty miles west of the north end of x^lbert Nyanza. Near Mawambi it receives the Ibina, which comes from the heights above the Semliki valley (behind Fort Mbeni) ; and a little lower down, the Epulu ( I h u r u ) , which flows through the Momvu country. At Bomili below the important sta- tion of Avakubi is the confluence of the Aruwimi and the Nepoko (a river first dis- coverecl by Dr. Junker, which is the southern boun- dary of the Man- bet tu country). '^4- aruwimi river above the LO\VESTij;RAPIDS The only other tributary of importance is the Lulu, which enters the Aruwimi a few miles from its confluence with the Congo. The Lulu is of political importance, because it is navigable for canoes for a considerable distance into the dense forest. The Aruwimi is navigable for steamers as far upstream as Yambuya (about sixty miles), beyond which falls occur at in- tervals along the whole course of this mighty stream. There are stretches of river between the falls and rapids which are navigated by canoes, but the Aruwimi above Avakubi is a mountain torrent in many places. In 1894 Grenfell noted that July, August, and September were the seasons of heaviest rain along the lower Aruwimi, but that the great rise of the river did not occur till October, There is a dry season of only three months at Yambuya — mid - December to mid - March. The current of the lower Aruwimi often varies on either side from a velocity of 1 50 feet per minute to 275 feet. The colour of the water is a clear 336 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO sepia-brovvn. The river is lowest in February and December and highest in April and October. Between the Aruwimi-Ituri and the Epulu (east of the hill gorge of Avakubi) is a broad, pear-shaped plain that was once possibly an upland lake of considerable size, the outlet of which sawed its way through the deep gorge in the hills at whose western end — facing the Nepoko plain — Avakubi is situated. Beyond its junction with the Nepoko the Aruwimi has entered the undulating plains and swampy forest of Central Congoland. The mountain region in which the Aruwnni, Nepoko, Bomokandi, and Wele-Kibali are born extends a long tapering finger south-westwards to the main 185. PAXCd KAI IDS OF ARUWIMI Congo at Stanley Falls. It reaches its highest altitudes, how- ever, along the edge of the Albert Edward-Semliki-Albert Nyanza rift valley and near the sources of the western Ituri (Kilo Mountains, where the gold is found), and perhaps south of the upper Lindi River. Near Lake Albert and to the west of the upper Semliki this splendid mountain country attains altitudes of from six to eight thousand feet. Elsewhere the heights above sea-level scarcely exceed five thousand feet, and up to this limit the country (except for human inter- vention) is covered with dense forest. Owing probably to this excessive grrowth of veo-etation under a rainfall which must be not far short of one hundred inches per annum, the basin of the Aruwimi, above Banalya, is very unhealthy for Europeans and foreign negroes. Black-water fever is prevalent, together with severe anaemia. Health, however, is quickly restored by THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 337 transference to the grassy uplands overlooking Lake Albert or the Semliki valley, where the forest is abated above six thou- sand feet and temperate, drier conditions prevail. The Rubi River/ which enters the lake-like Congo near Bumba, where the mighty stream hitherto coming from the south begins to turn definitely westwards, was one of Grenfell's earliest discoveries in December 1884. His description of its lower course has been given on page 123. He adds at a later date that the rainy season at the mouth of the Loika (as he prefers to call the Rubi) is heaviest in the months of February, March, October, November, and December, and that the river- level is highest in October and lowest in January. The main stream of the Rubi rises close to the Aruwimi and the affluents of the Wele, in the hilly country of Mabode. In the basin of the upper Rubi and of its affluent the Likati the rocks seem to be slate. The natives grind these into a grey powder with which to colour their skins. The Mongala'" River was one of the very few Congo affluents not explored by Grenfell, who only visited its delta. The upper Mongala is made up of four important streams: the Dua ("Black" water), the Ebola ("White" water), the Likema-Bwila, and the Ibanza River. All of them rise quite close to the Wele- Mubangi from the low range of hills (about five hundred feet above local levels — some seventeen hundred to two thousand feet in total altitude) which borders the middle course of this river. The Mongala is only navigable by steamers for about fifty miles above the Congo confluence. Navigation is then stopped by the Likini-Businga rapids and falls. Beyond these cataracts, however, vessels of shallow draught can penetrate as far up the main stream (Ebola) as Congo, which is barely sixty miles from the middle Mubangi. The Dua River can be navirated in canoes for some hundred and twenty miles upstream to the east. But for the narrow neck of highland behind Bopoto, this river might almost unite near its source with the Chimbi affluent of the Rubi. The slug-crish Motima River, which ... . enters the Mongala just below the Likini rapids, flows nearly ' This river is also known as the Lubi, Loika, and Itimbiri. Grenfell gives the altitude above sea-level of the Rubi confluence with the Congo as 1,230 feet, and the volume of the Rubi at its mouth as 30,000 cubic feet per second. ^ The Mongala as far as the Mungwadi rapids was explored in 1887 by Captain Baert (a Belgian) and Mr. J. R. Werner (an Englishman). The last-named explorer was the brother of Miss A. Werner, the well-known writer on African languages and folklore. In its upper waters the main Mongala River is known as the Ebola, a term said to mean "White." "Mongala" is a name of uncertain etymology and local use, perhaps connected with the equally incorrect " Bangala." I. — z 338 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO parallel with the main Congo, and perhaps at flood-time turns the Bwela country' into a huge island. Then, also, during the flood season, which here would be the months of October and May, the Mongala in its lower course almost unites with the eastern branches of the Ngiri River, and thus with the lower Mubangi. The actual frontage of the Congo along the Bangala shore (Nouvelle Anvers to Mobeka) is about one to two hundred feet above flood-mark, but behind this strip of dry land there are lakelets, swampy forests, marshes, and narrow meandering streams — another "vegetable Venice," in fact: redeemed from l&b. A VILLAGE OF THE EWELA COUNTRV BEHIND KOPOTO dismality by the splendid forest which for three or four months out of the twelve rises directlv from the stagnant water. This scenery is well described by Father Heymans in an account of a visit to the Ndobo country, three days' river jour- ney from Nouvelle Anvers by the Congo and by a narrow stream called the Moeko (" no more than a rivulet, which trunks of trees, torn up by hurricanes, often render unnavi- gable ") : — ■ " There is no undergrowth [in this swampy forest region of Ndobo], but huge venerable trees stand erect like so many columns, ' On the Congo coast of which are the flourishing Baptist mission stations of Bopoto, etc. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 339 whose sturdy stem is almost hidden by the twining of climbing parasites, among which shine in many-coloured clusters, innumerable orchids. "All these forest giants stand in the water. Not a spot where the foot can be put to the ground. Our boat glides under the leafy vault, sparing us the meanderings of the river and the impetuosity of the current. This navigation over flood waters does not any the less remain unpleasant. Still it constitutes the only means of reaching Ndobo. When the waters are low, as I have said already, communication is very difficult, if not impossible. This is why these people, although they supply the State with provisions, live isolated, devoted only to their own 187. A VILLAGE OF THE INTERIOR BEHIND BOPOTO (Note ant-hill in the background with man standing on top.) instincts, and remain like their ancestors, slave dealers and cannibals. Hitherto only two whites have crossed the central market of this village. At five or six leagues from this centre the first plantations appear. They are composed of palm trees, bananas, and manioc, as well as a species of spinach. The country being completely submerged when the high waters supervene, these plantations need for their creation and preservation an enormous and continual labour. They form artificial islets whose superficial area may reach to as much as twenty acres. The dyke which protects them against the floods is made of small sticks bound close together, three feet high, fixed upright in the slimy ground, the long line of which is supported by the trunks of the banana trees. This dyke, in spite of careful labour, would not suffice to preserve the islets from inundation, if when the waters sank, search were not made in the beds of the dried streams for a supply of mud which is placed 340 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO above the dyke in order to raise the soil of the islet and supply a rich manure for the plantations. " Every freeman possesses an islet in the midst of which stand his sheds and house. This last is not wanting in outward appearance. The base, which is quadrangular and formed of great stakes placed side by side, rises almost three feet from the ground, and supports a high roof of two sides and covered with palm leaves. The door is about two feet four inches high, so that anyone who seeks to enter is obliged to go down on his hands and knees. Inside is a profound darkness ; mats hang on the upright walls and along the roof in order to ensure the inhabitants against rain ; with the same object the ground is covered with round logs laid side by side. " On the islets in question the most common produce-bearing tree is the oil palm {Elais), which gives a double revenue : half of these trees being kept to produce palm wine, the other half providing the nuts from which is extracted palm oil. The wine is scarcely ever used for com- mercial purposes, it is consumed on the spot ; but as for the oil, which is so celebrated, all the dwellers by the big river come to provide them- selves with it at Ndobo. In return for the delivery of a slave, thirty jars are given. " The village itself is only a more compact succession of artificial islets. Thus one sees here more numerous houses on a more restricted space, and it is here that we must go to study more completely the mode of life of this curious people." North of the Ngiri River the country is of a less swampy- nature, of a sHghtly higher altitude, and a more varied surface. Here begins and stretches north-eastwards towards the middle Mubangi the splendidly fertile territory of the Banza people, "a rolling, down-like country, which but for the industrious agriculture of the Banza would be one vast forest " [the slate formations of the upper Mongala seem to e.Ktend westwards across the Banza district]. Except where the vigorous, agricultural, non-Bantu races of the Mubangi basin have attacked the woodland and turned it into villages and plantations, there is much dense forest right across this region from the lower Mubangi to the Rubi, Aruwimi, Nepoko, and upper Wele. This forest extends east- wards to the Semliki River, and in places overlaps the Congo- Nile water-parting. Indeed, as regards its special and peculiar fauna, it even reaches — in isolated patches — to the north- eastward coast-lands of the Victoria Nyanza and to the slopes of Mount Kenya. Westwards, across the Mubangi and Sanga rivers, it apparently connects with the dense primeval forests of French Coneo and the southern Cameroons ; and, so far as peculiarities of fauna are concerned, seems even to be con- tinued north and west (with many breaks) across the Niger THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 341 delta and along the West Coast of Africa to Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Portuguese Guinea. Measured from north to south, this belt of forest with its remarkable fauna and flora is often not more than a hundred miles in width. It has a peculiar fauna of its own, some members of which are not entirely confined to its limits, but extend their range to the north or south, yet are most concentrated within its borders. Creatures (so far as we know) almost entirely confined to this special forest belt — in isolated areas, or throughout the whole lenofth from west to east — are the Gorilla, most species of Chimpanzi, several kinds of Cercopi- theciis monkey, a large, water - lovino- I nsectivore {Potajuoga/e), the Golden Cat {Felis aurata)^ the Bongo or Broad - horned Tragelaph [Boocercus), the Water Chevrotain {Dor- catheriiivi), the Flying Anomalure (not a flying squirrel, though very like one superficially), one or two species of Tree Hyrax, the Okapi, and the big, black Forest Pig (//y- iochoerus), only recently discovered.^ Besides these peculiar mammals there are some species or genera of birds almost entirely confined to this narrow forest zone, though occasionally stray- ' Vide Mr. R. J. Pocock's paper, Proceedings Zoological Society, 1907. He has revived Temminck's specific name in lieu of the alternative chrysothrix or celidogaster. ^ As regards the Okapi, this primitive Giraffine type was first definitely heard of by the writer of this book when he entered the Ituri Forest in 1900. Through the kindness of Lieutenant Meura and Mr. Eriksson of the Congo State Government, he was supplied with a skin and skulls, besides the imperfect specimens of skin he had already collected. Grenfell 'rediscovered' it in the Babali country, south of the Aruwimi, in 1902, and wrote of it in his survey notes as the Ndumba. The range of the Okapi has since been greatly extended by the researches of Captain Boyd Alexander, Major Powell Cotton, the Belgian officials, Leoni, Jadoul, SifYert, Auzdlius, Arnold, Mertens, van Hulde, Sillye, and the Swiss Dr. David {vide chapter xxxni). The black Forest Pig {Hylockoerus) was first of all alleged by Sir Henry Stanley and by the present writer to exist in the Ituri Forest. Stanley saw it ; Mr. Doggett and I merely collected native reports. Grenfell reported its existence in the Aruwimi forests under the name of Nsulu, in 1902. Curiously enough, the animal in its eastern THE BONGO OR BROAD-HORNED TRAGELAPH (From a photograph of a specimen killed on the N.E. Congo.) The brightly contrasted red and white-striped skin of this splendid beast is much in favour amongst the natives of the Forest region for bandoliers, girdles, etc., vieing in their favour with that of the Okapi. 342 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO ino^ southwards into the main Cong-o basin. Amonost these IS the remarkable and primitive type of Guinea-fowl, Phasidus niger — a blackish-brown bird without white spots, and with a bare head and neck, yellow and orange. Until a few IIIK llNEbT hrECIMEX hXTANT OF A MALE OKAPI Set up in the Paris Natural History Museum : from the neighbourhood of Avakubi. species was actually brought to light, so far as specimens were concerned, by Mr. C. W. Hobley and Captain Meinerzhagen, after whom the first described species was named. Almost before Captain INIeinerzhagen obtained his specimens from Mount Kenya, the Congo State authorities had sent home remarkable examples from the Ituri Forest to be studied in Belgium. This type has since been named Hylo- choerus itiitiensis by Professor Paul Matschie. Then followed the interesting dis- covery of Baron Maurice de Rothschild and M. H. Neuville, who found this Forest Pig existing in the Nandi forests, north-east of the A'ictoria Nyanza, and even in forests north of Lake Baringo. Simultaneously proof of its existence in the forests of the southern Cameroons was transmitted by Mr. G. L. Bates, who has done so much to illustrate the zoology of that region. Mr. Bates's specimen was found to be distinct from the East and Central African types and was named Hylochoerus riviator. It is more highly specialized. The existence of this Forest Pig has been credibly reported from eastern Liberia by Mr. Maitland Pye-Smith, and the Dutch geographer Dapper gives a description of a black pig found in western Liberia in the early seventeenth century which seems very likely to be the Hylochoerus. Junker in 1891 hints at the existence " of a third species of pig, other than the Wart-hog and Red-river-hog," in the Bari country west of Lado. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 343 years ago the range of this bird was thought to be Hmited to the Gaboon (French Congo), where it was discovered by Paul Du Chaillu, but it has recently been obtained by Belo^ians in the Ituri Forest, more than a thousand miles to the east. A somewhat allied form i^Agelastes) is found in the forests of the Gold Coast and Liberia. Then there is the Great Blue Plantain-eater (which extends down the Congo to 190. AN ADULT MALE OF THE BLACK. FOREST PIG (HYLOCHOERUS) OF NORTH-EAST CONGOLAND AND EQUATORIAL EAST AFRICA (From one of the specimens obtained by Baron Maurice de Rothschild.) Nyangwe), and there are two genera of Hornbills {Ccralogynnia and Ortholophus), besides many other birds, several chameleons, one or two snakes, and a good many butterflies and beetles. The interesting part about this narrow Equatorial forest zone of Africa stretching from Mount Kenya on the east to Portu- guese Guinea on the west is that its affinities are distinctly Malayan or Miocene-European. Fossil types discovered in India indicate that this forest zone may have been continuous across the Tropics of the Old World from westernmost Guinea to easternmost Malaya — Java and Borneo. The Gorilla was at one time thought to be restricted in its range to the Gaboon, South Cameroons, and the western part of French Congo. We now know that it is found as far north in the Cameroons as the Sanaga River and as far south as the 344 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Niadi-Kvvilu, close to the Lower Congo. Gorillas have been credibly reported from the Sanga River, a hundred miles or so west of the lower Mubangi, Thence, proceeding eastwards, so far as records went, there was a blank between the Sanga and the Rubi, as there has been also in the range of other types characteristic of this forest belt of Equatorial Africa. But in the summer of 1905, Grenfell himself killed a gorilla in the Bwela country near the river Motima. He writes as follows in a private letter of August 12 1905 : — " When I was on the way to one of the inland Schools of which I wrote you earlier on we came across a party of Gorillas. They were in the branches of a tree nearly 150 feet high, and quite out of range of a shot-gun. To the great joy of my hungry boys (they are always hungry for meat) I brought one down with a rifle bullet. It was not a very tall one, only four feet high, but it was very thickly built and im- mensely strong. The natives say the gorillas kill the leopards by an open-handed blow on the side of the head, and one can quite believe it, having regard to the length of the arm and size of the hand. I remem- ber Mr. Saker once telling me they fought ' swinging their hands round like shovels ! ' The natives went on to tell me that the gorillas don't eat the leopards at once, but that they scratch holes in some soft place and then cover them up, and place on the top branches of wood that the hyenas cannot lift, and then, in three or four days, when the meat is sufficiently ' high,' they go and feast on their enemies ! " In the Aruwimi basin as far east as Mawambi the Gorilla is reported to exist in the dense forests ; also between the Congo at Stanley Falls and the vicinity of Uganda (Virunga vol- canoes). Captain Guy Burrows in the Land of the Pygmies gives a photograph ot an alleged gorilla killed near Stanley Falls which may be the Gorilla beringeri^ actually ob- tained from the forests of the Virunga volcanoes, north of Lake Kivu, by Mr. Oscar Beringer. The present writer, when in the Ituri Forest in 1900, was shown photographs of an ape of large size like a gorilla which had been killed by the natives near Avakubi, and photographed by a Belgian officer. Grenfell's references to gorillas and chimpanzis all apply to the north bank of the Congo or to regions beyond the north or right bank. And this prompts the present writer to advance an interestino- suoraestion, namelv, that the lake-like course and basin of the main Cong^o has been a grreat factor in limiting the distribution of the forest-zone fauna southwards. ^ Vide "Notes on Anthropoid Apes," by the Honble. Walter Rothschild, Pro- ceedings Zoological Society, 1 904. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 345 All creatures like the great apes unable or unwilling to cross broad expanses of water, and entering Africa from the north or east, must have been effectually stopped in their progress south- westwards by the Congo, from Lake Bangweulu to the Atlantic. Although the Chimpanzi has been at times reported 191. A CHIMPANZI FROM THE BATEKE COUNTRY NORTH OF STANLEY POOL Photographed by Grenfell at Brazzaville. to exist south of the Congo, in Angola, no specimen (that I know of) in any museum can be derived with certainty from south of the Lower Congo. The confusion arises probably from specimens sent to Europe in former days from Kabinda or Luango, districts more or less Portuguese, but north of the Congo. The present writer cannot recall any evidence as to the existence of a chimpanzi or gorilla from any portion of the 346 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Congo basin south or west of the main Congo. A chimpanzi (Livingstone's " Soko ") is found on the west coast of Tan- ganyika, in the Manyema country, and as far south as Marungu, in the region between Tanganyika and the Lualaba. But I beUeve so far no specimen of great ape^ has been collected south or west of the main Congo, nor has any other mammal of the forest belt which is unable to swim or to cross in some way a broad, deep, rapid current. For example, I believe only one species of Manis anteater — the East African Manis temniinckii — penetrates into the region south of the main Congo, and Manis temjninckii extends over South Africa as well. The range of the three other species of this " edentate " keeps to the regions north of the Congo, from Sierra Leone to Uganda. o This barrier of the Congo may be a reason why the mamma- lian fauna of central Congoland is comparatively poor. The broad river has stopped the advance from the north and east of so many beasts characteristic of the Equatorial forest belt, while the East African fauna has not yet had time to travel all the way round the sources of the Congo and penetrate northwards to the regions beyond the Kasai and Lukenye. The original lake basin of the Congo to the north of the Lukenye River is the region that seems to be poorest in species of mammals, in comparison with the wealth of Central, South Central, and Eastern Africa. In 1885 Grenfell, as already related, had traced the Mubangi River as far upstream as the Zongo Rapids, and had penetrated beyond just enough to realize that the river came from the east, and might conceivably be the lower course of Schweinfurth's Wele. In 1887 his task was continued by Lieutenant (afterwards Lt.-Col. and Vice-Governor) \'angele, of the Belgian Army. Vangele by January 1888 had traced the Mubangi under the names of Dua and Koyu some distance past its confluence with the Mbomu. He penetrated, in fact, far enough to make its identification with the W ele a matter of certainty, especially as Dr. Junker had a few years previously greatly extended the western course of Schweinfurth's river. The Greek explorer. Dr. Potagos, in 1877 had discovered the Mbomu, a river which was made more clearly known by Junker. 1 Mr. S. p. A'erner, however {Pioneeri?ig in Central Africa), states that he has seen a chimpanzi in the forests of the Lulua. These apes might however have crossed the Lualaba near its sources, and have found their way north to the forests between the Lomami and the Kasai. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 347 After Vangele's successful exploit, a number of enterprising Belgians and several French explorers launched themselves with enthusiasm on the northern portion of the Congo basin, and by 1895 all the main facts of geography in this direction had been recorded and mapped. The ultimate source of the head-stream of the Wele is within a few miles — perhaps not more than twenty-five — of the station of Wadelai on the Mountain Nile. The upper Wele, known in these regions as the Kibi, I ret, and Kibali, rises with many contributing streams in the same knot of mountains (Mounts Speke, Emin, Schweinfurth, etc. — about three to four thousand feet in altitude) as gives rise to the Aruwimi-Ituri on the south, and on the east to many affluents of the Nile. The northern limits of this range also feed the Kibali through its north- easternmost affluent, the Dungu or Bangari River. ^ This united with the Kibali takes the name of Wele or Werre" in the Manbettu country. At the place called Bomokandi the Wele is joined by a very considerable affluent — the Bomokandi — which under the name of Meri-Mayo rises in the Momvu country near the sources of the Ituri, flowing in almost parallel loops to those of the Wele. Below the Bomokandi confluence the Wele is some- times known as Malima, then as Makua, then again as Koyu ; but as the river flows through a region of singularly diverse tribes and languages, it probably bears at least a hundred differ- ent names. At Yakoma it is joined by the Mbili, and by the very big river Mbomu, which has acquired importance as being the frontier between the French and Belgian Congo, from the point where both of them are conterminous with the Egyptian Sudan. The Mbomu in its lower course is interrupted by many falls and rapids. Navigation by canoes, with some intervals of portage, is carried on as far upstream as Bangaso. From the confluence of the Wele with the Mbima, below Bomokandi, it becomes a broad stream, but its course between there and the vicinity of the Mbomu is interrupted by rapids or falls which are serious obstacles to steamer navigation, though steam launches during the flood season of the year can ascend the Wele-Mubangi from the Congo to the post of Banzyville. ' It was on the head-waters of the Dungu at Ndirfi that Baron Dhanis' troops revolted February 14 1897, as he was on his way to occupy the Bahr-al-Ghazal region. ^ Ware, Werre, or Wele is the name applied to a number of different rivers in this part of the Congo basin, and is probably a widespread term for a flowing stream in this part of Central Africa. It may be related to the Bale, Bari, Bere of the N. Western Bantu. 348 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO From here to Jabir^ (the former capital of a Nyamnyam sultan- ate), and for some fifty miles beyond Jabir, navigation can be continued in canoes, even to the post of Semio on the Werre. From Amadi on the Wele-Makua eastwards to the Logo country the river is again navigable by boats or canoes (some two hundred miles). The Rapids" [beginning southwards at Zongo], which stopped Grenfell in 1885, are, however, the limit of easy, all- the-year-round navigation from the Congo confluence upstream. Here the Mubangi forces its way through two ridges of low hills which run from the north-west to the south-east athwart its course. This hilly region extends southwards for some distance beyond the right bank of the Mubangi, as far south, in fact, as the Lua River, where the swampy region begins. This undulating country of low hills separates the basin of the Mubangi on the east and south from the watershed of the Mongala River and its many affluents, and really marks the northern limits of the origrinal Congro Lake. Along its north or right bank the Mubangi receives many affluents with an imposing length of course, but not always of great volume, inasmuch as they take their rise in the dry regions of the central Sudan. The head-stream of the Chinko or Shinko rises farthest north of all the Congo affluents — almost under the 8th degree of N. Lat. The Chinko and the Bali join the Mbomu. The Koto River rises also not far south of 8° from a low range of mountains on the borders of the Chad-Shari basin, and is rather an important racial boundary, to some extent definino; the frontier between the Nsakara and the more savage negro tribes. Its lower course is barred with many rapids. Another northern affluent of the Mubangi is the Kwango, interesting from its Bantu name. Amongst the north-western affluents are the Kemo and Tomi (both partly navigable from near the Shari water - parting), the Mpoko, Bali-Lobai, and Ibenga, rivers of considerable volume rising- close to the upper Sanga and navigable for some distance by ' Jabir was (seemingly) an Abandjia (Zande, Nyamnyam) chiefs son who early attached himself to a party of Sudanese traders, thus reaching Khartum and becoming acquainted with Gordon's Government. He subsequently returned with a large following and many guns, and founded a chieftainship on the Wele. He was executed by the Belgians in 1905 after an unsuccessful rising against the State. 2 I have ventured to give the comprehensive name of "Grenfell Falls" to the series of rapids which (except at times of high flood) completely interrupt navigation on the Mubangi. These extend for a distance of about forty-five miles, beginning on the north with the Rapid of Mokwangai ; then follow close together the Rapid of the Elephant, of the En Avant, of Basera, and of Belli. After this there is a stretch of twenty miles of troubled water, and then the final Zongo Fall. (H. H. J.) THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 349 canoes. All the regions to the north and west of the Mubangi, from its confluence with the Mbomu to the main Congo, are of course part of French West Africa. The mountains or hills both north and south of the Mubangi River seem to be rich in copper, and most of the peoples of this region work this metal. Alluvial gold has been discovered in the extreme north-east of the Congo basin, in the Kilo mountain streams about thirty miles west of the shores of Lake Albert. Washing the sands of the western Ituri in these mountain valleys is becoming a lucrative operation, attracting large numbers of negroes from the Nile territories of the Uganda Protectorate. This is the only region of the Congo Free State as yet wherein payable gold has been discovered, except of course the mines of Ka- tanga in the far south. North of the central Mubangi, past the rapids of Zongo, there is a flat district which was once a lake (no doubt) im- prisoned for a time 192. gnathonemus ibis, a kish of the mubangi behind the Zongo ^'^'^^^ barrier, through which it burst to join the vast inland sea of the Congo. This northern plain is ill-spoken of for agriculture, but it seems to be a magnificent game country. The undulating or hilly land south of the Mubangi (a tongue of which reaches to the main Congo at Bopoto) is praised by many travellers for its rich soil and advanced native agriculture. The dense forest does not seem to extend north of the Wele-Makua-Mubangi, and be- yond the Aruwimi basin has been much abated by the vigorous agriculture of the Mafibettu, A-zande, Ababua, Mongwandi, and Banza. There is much honey in all the lands of the Mubangi- Wele basin. The Ligurian honey-bee is said to be present in the Nyamnyam country (A-banjia). North of the Mubangi- Wele the big mammalian fauna is quite " Sudanian " — giraffes, black buffalo, lions, rhinoceros, giant eland, hartebeest, tsesebe, water-buck, wild dogs {Lycaon), and hyaenas. The zebra seems to be completely absent from all regions west of the Nile. It is only found in the south-east and extreme south of the Congo basin. 350 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The Ethnology of all this North Congo region is far more complicated than any other division of the Congo basin. Linguistically, we are no longer in the exclusive domain of the Bantu. Racially, the physical type varies from the pygmy and from the most primitive form of forest negro known (in the eastern basin of the Aruwimi) upwards through such magnificent blackmen as the Ababua, Mongwandi, Sango, and Banza, to the negroid Nsakara and the almost Hamitic aristo- cracies among the Nyamnyam and Manbettu. The natives of the densely forested Aruwimi basin include considerable numbers of Pygmies, interspersed among the taller tribes of Bantu or Sudanese negroes. The dwarf hunters of the forests are seemingly of two or more types, black-skinned and yellow-skinned. The lighter-coloured pygmies in addition are sometimes of quite refined features and comely appearance. But this variation must be due to inter- mixture with outside races. The typical pygmy, whether dark or light in skin colour, presents these characteristic features : rather bulging eyes, an absolutely flat nose with the alee nearly on a level with the flattened tip, a very long upper lip, not everted (as in the ordinary negro), and a weak and retreating chin ; also a tendency to the growth of light-coloured, downy hair on the body and to reddish hair on the head. The pygmy type has not been reported to occur to the west of the Aruwimi-Rubi basin. It is not heard of in these latitudes westwards, until the traveller reaches the regions west of the Mubangi ; also the Sanga, Ogowe and southern Cameroons. North of the Aruwimi the pygmy peoples extend to the Wele-Makua (where they are called Balia, Akka, Bakke-bakke, and Tikitiki), and even in a more mixed type into the Bahr- al-Ghazal region (the "Red Bongo"). Eastwards and south- wards the pygmies under the names of Bambute or Wambutti, Bakiokiva or Bakwa are found in the Ituri-Aruwimi and Semliki basins, and along the Albertine Rift valley to the north and west coasts of Tanganyika [Bativd). They are present in central Congoland [Batzva, Baptdii, Baj'timbi, Bua) from the Lomami right across to the Lulongo, the Ruki and Lake Ntomba, and also in the forest regions of the Sankuru- Kasai basin {^Batzva, Bakzva, Yeke), and in Ubudjwa, between the Lualaba and Tanganyika [vide chapter xxi]. The black negroes of the central and upper Aruwimi basin belong mostly (but not entirely) to the " Forest negro " type, with disproportionately short legs, long arms, and prognathous faces. The Balese and Balende of the upper Ituri make them- THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 351 selves additionally hideous by the women wearing large lip- rings. But here, as elsewhere along the northern watershed of the Congo, there has been a mingling of blood with the Sudan, a slight infiltration of the Hamite and the tall Nilotic neg^ro. Indeed the Aruwimi seems to have been one of the routes by which the northern negroes and negroids broached the Congo basin, pierced the im- r — " penetrable forests to reach the great river-highway. In arts and manufactures some of the Aruwimi tribes have not got beyond the wood- and-stone age, and still employ wooden spears and arrow- heads ; others work copper and iron most successfully and ar- tistically,^ make beautiful pot- tery of a high order of aesthetic merit Langfuag-e families tog^ether with racial types are very di- verse in north-eastern Cong'o- land ; a language map of this region would look much like the geology of Somersetshire — samples of many formations of widely separated ages. In the extreme north-east, on the verge of the Nile watershed near Lake Albert, are the Nilotic negro tribes of the Adyellu, and Alur or Alulu. West and north of the Adyellu are Mundtt and Misa peoples, mainly in the basin of the Yei. The Misa would almost seem to offer some linguistic connection with the North Congo Bantu. On the lofty plateaux and mountains stretching between the sources of the Ituri and the head- waters of the Wele are the Logo, Lega, Drudu or Lendii (the correct name is uncertain) — a tribe of very mixed physical type ; simian, short-legged pygmies and tall, big-nosed, hand- 193. A thief's weapon from banalya, ARUWIMI Used for stealing goats, to simulate a leopard's claws, and sometimes a woman's breast is torn off by this as a punishment. * Among Other strange implements brought back by Grenfell from the Aruwimi is the extraordinary weapon figured here, resembhng very markedly similar imita- tions of eopards' claws used by the cannibal secret societies of southern Sierra Leone. 352 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO some negroids belonging to the same community. The Lendu, Drudu, or Lega' speak a language (see my Uganda Pro- tectorate) as yet quite isolated and without affinities. South of the Lendu and west of the upper Semliki is the peculiar Bantu group of the Bahuku (Bamboga), related in language to the speech of the lower Aruwimi and Northern Congo. Between the mid-Semliki and the upper Lindi and Chopo rivers there are Babira forest tribes {Banande is one of their designations) of low physical type, speaking a degraded form of Bantu tongue (the " Kibira " of the present writer's Uganda Protectorate). Then behind the Lendu and the Bahuku are the other BabiJ^a,'^ a tall, handsome Bantu people said to speak a dialect of classical Bantu related to the Uganda- Unvoro- Kavirondo group. West of the Babira, and extendinof across the Wele- Aruwimi basins in a south-easterly direction, is the Momvu- Mbtiba group of peoples. These penetrate through the foreign region till they come to the very verge of the Congo watershed, and look down, as it were, on the valley of the Semliki, behind the country of Mboga. North-westwards, this Momvu group fuses into the Mafibettu caste, though there is apparently no connection in language. The Momvu-Mbuba tongue is abso- lutely non-Bantu in its roots and structure, though it resembles it in phonology. It does not seem to ofter any evidence of connection with Mafibettu, though it is tempting to trace the racial name Momvu through Mombutu to Mafibettu. This also seems to be connected with the tribal name of Mbiitu or Mbote {Bainbute) which is applied for the most part to the pygmies in the Ituri Forest^ who speak a dialect of Mbuba. Just as there are Batwa forest negroes in the Kasai basin of tall stature, and also Batwa pygmies, Barumbe dwarfs, and tall Barumbe riverain tribes, and the same thing with the Bapoto or Baputu of the northern Congo (some of which are yellow dwarf hunters, others tall black river folk), so the term Mbute does not seem necessarily to be restricted to the pygmies of the Ituri, but to be connected with Mombutu and Momvu. This racial name also appears as Mabode to the north of the main Aruwimi, between that river and the Bomokandi. The Mabode people are ap- 1 Stanley's Baregga of the south-west corner of Lake Albert. My identification of them with the " Logo" of the Belgians and of Boyd Alexander is only an assump- tion based on slight evidence. The Logo of the Nile-Wele water-parting may belong to the Madi, Mundu, or Nilotic groups. ^ -bira., -znia, -bila simply means "forest." Babira = people of the forest. ^ South of the Ituri Forest, the pygmies speak Bantu dialects. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 353 parently related to the Manbettu/ A sub-tribe of the Man- bettu is styled Bangba. This may be an overlaid Bantu people, possibly a former member of the Ababua-Babati group. There is a very distant connection between the Mbuba language and the mysterious tongue of the Banianga and western Bakunm non- Bantu languages, revealed to us by the studies of the late W. H. Stapleton. The Banianga and kindred tribes stretch from the southern basin of the Lindi and the upper Chopo river to the Conoro at Stanley Falls, and even extend across the west bank of the Congo in the direction of the Lomami. Along the Nepoko the people seem to be partly Mafibetlti, partly Monivu. The dominant class amono- the Maiibettu is obviously tinged with Caucasian blood by some intermixture with N y a m n y a m raiders or neo roid wan- derers of Hamitico- Nilotic origin (like the Bahima of Uganda). The Mafibettu lan- guage— at present very little known — is very peculiar in its forms and offers as yet no clue to near relationships : here and there is a possibly elusive resemblance in a word-root to Madi or Nyamnyam. The western basin of the Aruwimi is entirely Bantu. South of the main river and north of the lower Lindi are the Babaii 194. TYPICAL lOKKhl NEGROES im I (One of them a Mission boy.) ^ Captain Guy Burrows denies this connection {The Land of the Pygmies). Some say the Mabode are Bantu Ababua. Monibutlu is probably only a variant of Mafibettu, but the name is used now by some writers to indicate the serfs of the aristocratic Mafibettu. Boyd Alexander describes the 'Mombutu' as strong in physique, with broad faces, blunt noses and high cheekbones. ^ The forest negroes of the countries between the upper Ituri and the Lindi (? Babaii) are described by Lord Mountmorres as timid yet grasping, feeble both of intellect and physique, short of stature, and revelling in most repulsive cicatrization and a curious garishness in personal adornment and attire. It is here that mutila- tion of the lips of women is practised most extensively, some having the upper and I. — 2 A 354 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO between Popoie and Panga along the Aruwimi course are the Bagnnda (sometimes called the Bangelinia). East of the Bapo- poie [Bagunda] are the Babili or Bomili, a " backward forest people of repulsive appearance " (Mountmorres). West of the Bagunda are the Banalya people, who are apparently related in language and other affinities to the Magboro^ or Maboro of the north. ^ The Magboro seem to belono- to the great Ababua group. According to Vice-Consul Michell their proper name is Bitbiia or Abobiva. West of Yambuya on the Aruwimi and alonor the Congo banks on either side of the Aruwimi confluence are the far- famed Ba-soko (sometimes styled Basaka, Bazoko, Basongo, Barumbu). They are related in language and perhaps origin to the riverain Congo people — Turumbu, Baunga, Topoke, and Lokele, and to the inhabitants of the lower Lomami.^ " The Basoko men are big, strong, and capable of education.* They wear a loin cloth of felted bark ; their weapons are a shield of basket- work, a broad-headed iron spear, a long wooden pike hardened at the fire, and a great curved knife. In war they are streaked with red, white, and black and wear an immense head-dress of feathers. " Ordinarily if they are not in boats on their way to the markets or to visit fisheries, they are walking about with their weapons, or their some both upper and lower lips extended by means ot an ivory disk let into the flesh, so that they form a kind of beak ; others again draw the nether lip down by means of a large crystal until it hangs below the chin. "The men of these tribes, however, are good huntsmen, carrying little bows and exquisitely made arrows, which they use with a Pygmy-like deftness." Their huts also seem to be very like those of the Pygmies, low shelters thatched with large leaves. Between Bafwaboli and Bafwasendi the people are of a slightly higher type, with better-constructed villages and better-cultivated plantations. ^ "The Liagboro language is spoken at Banalya, on the middle Aruwimi,'' Gren- fell notes, besides stating that the tribes to the south, such as the Bangba, speak the Ndaka language, which may be that of the (eastern) Bakumu, a very corrupt Bantu (see page 328). - Note derived from a Belgian source : " From the moral and intellectual point of view, the natives of the Banalya villages and those up the river are superior to the Basoko, but they are far inferior to them as fishers and paddlers. When they go up the river they make little use of the paddle ; when the depth of the water allows it, they use the pole, which they handle in a remarkably even style. The Bagunda use the bow and arrow. The tribe is, it appears, a very important one. Like the Banalya, the Bagunda pound kola nut to make from it a beverage which they suck through a straw." ^ The domain of the Soko-Kele peoples might be called the Ya country, from the constant use in place names of this unexplained prefix. Up the Lindi River there is a large district in which the names of the villages or tribal settlements begin with Bafwa- or Bav7va-. On the central .Aruwimi there is the Ava district ; farther to the east most village names begin with Audi- or Inde- (this may be a Momvu-Mbuba prefix : it stretches from near the Semliki on the south to the Kibali-Wele on the north). Many of the Mahbettu names begin with Ne-: it would be interesting to elucidate the purport of these particles peculiar to each district. Bafwa may be a softening of Bakiva, which means 'people.' " Much of what follows on the Basoko is evidently extracted by Grenfell from some Belgian report. {\\. H. J.) THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 355 huge paddle ; or else they are mending fishing-nets, fashioning floats of light wood and hooks, repairing their bow-nets, or adzing the sides of a hollowed log which is to become a canoe. The freeman Musoko, however, is often stretched on a couch in the shade, or lying propped on the movable bed which is in use in these districts. " The women wear a small loin-cloth of a hand's breadth made of plaited material, suspended from a girdle or worn as a small apron. They are good mothers and generally looked up to by their husbands, who do not overburden them with excessive work, and treat them well. " Their tatuing is highly characteristic, and almost entirely confined to the face ; it is composed of large dots bordering the lips in parallel 195. BASOKO PEOPLE lines and covering the chin as well as the brow. The eyelashes and hairs of the eyebrows are carefully plucked out. "The outer margin of the ear is pierced by six, seven, or eight holes, into which are inserted cords as thick as the finger and sometimes an elephant hair strung with beads, terminated at both extremities by thick knots. The temples and brows are shaved to the line of the ears. With some of them, the remaining hair is formed into a few flat plaits which are pulled forward towards the face, each terminating on the neck in a wisp of four to six inches long. " The forest races behind the Basoko wear at the top of the forehead a vertical plait of six to eight inches, crowned by a tuft of red river- hog's bristles. They are further decorated with an ornament of this kind over each ear. 356 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " To give evidence of his goodwill, the Musoko sets his spear in the ground and lays down his shield. In giving you his hand, he rubs the tip of your fingers, then snaps his thumb against his fingers. " TheBasoko work iron chiefly for the purpose of fashioning the rough spear-heads which are still used as currency on the north-eastern Congo. " They use copper to make beads and ornaments, and to decorate their weapons. They also manufacture shields, baskets, very strong mats, and nets for which the natives of the interior provide them with raw material, by selling prepared fibres and string. The Basoko cloth is principally made of the bark or bast of fig trees, beaten with a mallet. They prepare their food in earthenware vessels. Potter's clay is found everywhere in their neighbourhood and is shaped by the women, who show great skill in this work. " The people in the basin of the Menena-Lulu River, an affluent which joins the Aruwimi near its mouth, are all Bantu in lan- guage. They are — ascending from the Congo north-eastward — the Baja?ide, Mabenja, and Magboro, the last-named extending to the Aruwimi. The countiy of the Mabenja is distinguished from other districts by the number, beauty, and cleanliness of the villages. The houses are round with a conical roof, regularly placed. At the centre of each collection stands a rectangular building where the inhabi- tants meet together during the day in order to talk, play, or discuss questions of general interest. The public places, connecting roads and neighbourhood, are maintained in good condition with great care. " The Mabenja hunts and tills the soil. He lives among his family' and travels little. He is hospitable. Unlike the Bajande he is gentle and peaceable, and gets on very well with Europeans. He is always satisfied with what is offered him and does not beg." Here is another note collected by Grenfell as to a Benja or Mabenja settlement on the Lulu River :— " The village of Masimu is composed of several groups of dwell- ings set in a perfectly straight line. The houses, built of clay, are round and surmounted by a conical roof A very low building, thirty or more yards in length, seems to serve as a meeting-place or as a workshop for the manufacture of fishing-nets. In the centre of the village a large open space, carefully preserved, is kept for dances and sham fights." The Magboro speak the same dialect as the Mabenja, have villages of the same style, and adopt the same patterns in cicatrization. Behind the Basoko and Abuja, the peoples of the Itimbiri- Loika-Rubi basin, of the north-western affluents of the Aru- wimi, and of the middle course of the Wele, east of Jabir, are Bantu in their languages, and may be classed generically as the Ababua ; a group which includes the Bangelima, Abobwa (Bubua), Baiialya, JMagboro, Alabcnja of the Aruwimi, the THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 359 Baganji, Baluali, Bengc, Baieii, Babandcx, and Baduda of the Rubi basin, and the Bahaii, Bakango Ababua, and alHed tribes inhabiting that part of the Wele district which is situ- ated between the Bomokandi, Rubi, and Aruwimi ; or between latitude i° 40' and 3° 30' N., and longitude 23° to 26° 30' E. These Bantu-speaking people of the Ababua group at one time seem to have extended northwards to the Werre River, and almost to the verge of the Nile basin, but were gradually driven south by the invading A-zande (Nyamnyam). "Ababua" is a Nyamnyam rendering of Babua. Another comprehensive native name for this group is Babati (the Mobati of the Belgians), but Babua or Bubua is more widespread. The Ababua dialects of the Wele basin are closely allied to Stanley's "Bakiokwa" of Indekaru on the Epulu (north-west Ituri) and also to some of the north Congo and west Semliki tongues. Physically the Ababua (and their Magboro, ' Bangelima,' Banalya relations on the middle Aruwimi) are said to be the finest of all the inhabitants of the Congo. They are tall and slim, but their endurance does not appear to be very great. They are naturally hospitable, and are distinguished by a great love of freedom, but the fear of losing their independence makes them suspicious of strangers. This characteristic is justified by their history, since they have lost, in wars with the A-zande, a great part of their territory.^ Throuorhout these northern territories of the Conoo it mioht be observed (in examining a careful map) how many place, river, and even tribal names are Bantu in word-formation, even when the race inhabiting the district is distinctly non-Bantu in speech. Doubtless this is due to Bantu peoples having at one time inhabited the northernmost parts of the Congo basin, from which stroncrer neoroid races from the Sudan have driven them south, east, and west. The lands on either side of the Mongala River [below the falls and the junction of the Dua, Ebola, and Ibanza] are peopled by Bantu tribes (tall, stalwart folk) related to the Bangala, and styled Buj'a, Bwela, Mabali, and Akida. They speak dialects of a group called " Ngombe " by W. H. Stapleton, which is closely related to Ngala, Bangi, Poto, and other north Congo tongues. North of the Businga Falls of the Mongala the territory is occupied by a tribe obviously non-Bantu — the (so-called) Mong- wandi. They inhabit the country covered by the fan-like basin of the Mono-ala. Their lanouage offers distinct analoQ-ies to that See Professor Halkin's (Jiie/qi/es pciiplades du district dc I'Uele, published at Liege in 1907. 36o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO of the Sango, farther north ; and this warhke tribe ma)^ also be connected with the Banza people, so extolled by Belgian and British explorers for their physical beauty and high civilization. The Banza occupy the territories between the Mongala basin and the eastern bank of the Mubangi, especially the valley of the Lua River. Their range extends northwards almost to the northern Mubangi. Between the Mongwandi and the Bantu people of the Rubi River (behind the riverain Bapoto and Buja) are the non- Bantu Ndoiiga or Bondoiiga. Linguistically this tribe is nncon- 197. EXAMPLES OF THE MONGWANDI TRIBE, FROM THE UPPER MONGALA RIVER (The Mongwandi are a'lied to the Sango of the Mubangi.) nected with the Mongwandi, but offers considerable affinities to the Bamanga of the Lindi valley and Stanley Falls. The Banza country is magnificently fertile and the people^ occupying it are one of the finest negro races of the Congo. Unless they are killed out by sleeping sickness they should play a notable part in the agricultural development of this region. The following notes on the Banza were compiled by Torday from Belcrian information: — o " The Banza is a clever smith : it is he who makes lance?, hoes, and knives for the surrounding districts. But where he excels is in the ^ From the linguistic information collected by Grenfell and Stapleton [and the present writer], it would seem as though the Banza were related linguistically to the Mundu of the Bahr-al-Ghazal (see page 363). THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES manufacture of iron bells, real marvels of finish and sonority. These bells have such a far-reaching repute that they are sometimes purchased by a small tusk of ivory or a young slave. " The men are sober, brave, thrifty, and nearly always monogamous. Their women are modest and respected. Very little regard is had for clothing, though the Sudanese drawers are coming into fashion amongst the men. The Banza are sharply distinguished from other Congo tribes by the interest the men take in agriculture. Ordinarily among the Congo negroes the men disdain work in the fields, which they consider exclusively the province of women and debasing to men. But the male Ban/.a takes pride in the number, size, and management of his plantations. His fields are laid out in a regular manner. He begins by a vast square of cleared ground. Each seed plot is circular, and surrounded by a broad ring of banana trees. Inside this the Banza plants in long rows high-stalked millet, and between these stalks kidney beans. He knows that the millet will preserve the haricot, covered by its protecting shade, from the destructive heat of the sun, 198. A TOM-TOM DRUM FROM THE BAI.OI COUNTRY, LOWER KtUBANGI and furthermore that the haricot will twine itself at its will round this same stalk of its double benefactor. " Moreover, he divides his diligent care among the maize, the sweet potato, yam, plantain-banana, small sweet banana, arachis, and manioc, this last in small quantity. The elais palm tree being rare in these countries, the Banza people supply the wanted oil by cultivating the sesamum plant, the seeds of which supply them with an excellent oil for cooking purposes. "Tobacco, cultivated only to the amount required, grows in abundance, and is of splendid quality. But here the Banza is betrayed by a want of knowledge that not all his zeal can replace. Ignoring the right way to cure and dry the fragrant leaves, he holds them on drumsticks before the flame of a hot fire. When dry, or rather blackened, his tobacco has the appearance of China tea, and is wrapped in rolls of palm leaf, bound like a sausage, and hung up covered with charcoal and without aroma on the inside vault of his dwelling. " The ndongo or maize beer and juigo, a kind of mead obtained by steeping small, very acidulated green leaves in honey and water, constitute the indigenous Banza drinks. As good to taste as it is refreshing,7>«^£> gives him who abuses it a terrible colic, but it does not intoxicate. 362 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO "Agriculture requires cattle-breeding, and the Banza who does not trust exclusivel}' to hunting for a supply of meat possesses, besides innumerable poultry, splendid herds of goats whose immense size and savoury flesh testify to the precaution which has been taken in emasculating numbers of the males. " In short, the clean and comfortable dwellings, respectable morals, and the relative comfort of life that characterize the Banza people entitle them to the most considerate treatment at the hands of those Europeans whom Fate has placed in control over this fine country." The Baloi people of the extreme lower Mubangi have already been alluded to in previous chapters. They and the people of the Ngiri River are probably connected in origin with 199. CHRVSICHTHVS ORNATUS, A FISH OF THE MUBAXGI AND NORTHERN CONGO Collected by Rev. J. H. Weeks, B.M.S. the " Bangala " peoples, and of course speak Bantu dialects. Some of the Noonibe tribes are said to extend their rang-e to the reo-ion between the Mubangi and Ngiri, Viscount Mountmorres describes the population of the lower Mubangi above Imese as very mixed, some villages being " Zongo " and others " Bonjo." According to the Belgian authorities, Bonjo is a general name given to the more or less Bantu tribes on the west side of the lower Mubangi. On the left or east bank of the Mubangi, between the confluence of the Lua River and the vicinity of the Ngiri, the predominant tribe (also Bantu) is called Dongo or Longo [their country is entitled Bii/ongo^. The " Zongo" or Bazembi people living to the west of the lower Mubangi in the valley of the Lobai River are described by Mountmorres as small of stature and ravaged by yaws, craw-craw, and other unpleasant diseases. They are THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 363 largely a riverain race, depending on fisheries for their li\'ing', though they also make pottery out of the mud of the river and carry on a poor agriculture. They have been much harried in former years by the Banza, Bonjo, and Dongo, who raided their villaoes and carried them off as slaves to be sold at the mouth of the Mubangi and on Lake Ntomba. The " Bonjo" and " Dongo" appear [according to Mount- morres] to be the same people, and are a hybrid race between the Forest negroes and the more northern people of the plains. They are a splendid, intelligent, and fearless race, hardy, of fine physique, and singularly free from disease. They practise circumcision. Their towns are large and admirably built. Mountmorres cites instances of remarkable prolificness. A family consisting of one husband, twenty wives, and eighty children is by no means a rarity. They are convinced canni- bals, preferring human flesh to all other meat. It has been already recorded that when Grenfell in 1885 passed beyond 3° 2' N. Lat. about the confluence of the River Lobai, he encountered a folk whose language sounded strange in his ears. The vocabulary he recorded showed that it was no Bantu dialect. W. H. Stapleton also visited these people in 1897 and took down another list of words. He called the language tentatively Mpombo. Neither he nor Grenfell could form any theory as to the relationship of " Mpombo." It was reserved for the present writer to solve this enigma. In the extreme north-east of the Congo State, on the frontiers of the Lado enclave, there is a relatively small tribe known as the Mundu. It inhabits the south-eastern part of the Nyamnyam country, between 3° 30' and 5° N. Lat. Possibly tribes allied to the Mundu may be found in patches through the Nyamnyam domain north of the Wele River and in the direction of the Mbomu. The present writer found there were Mundu soldiers in the ranks of the native forces of Uganda originally recruited by Emin Pasha. He collected a vocabulary from them which is published in the Ugmida Protectorate. Comparing all these vocabularies with the un- classified Mpombo of the lower Mubangi (seven hundred miles west of Mundu-land), the interesting discovery was made that the Mundu language corresponded with Mpombo to a remark- able degree. As will be seen in the chapter on languages, the words collected by these two missionaries in that district agree very closely with the vocabulary written down by the present writer from natives of the Mundu district within the Nile water- shed, seven hundred miles to the eastward. Further, there are 364 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO indications, faint but impressive, that this language type is con- nected with the Bamanga of Stanley Falls, and possibly with some of the other languages spoken along the Wele-Mubangi. There may even be a far-distant linguistic connection between the Manbettu, Madi, Lendu, Momvu, Ndonga, Bamanga, Mundu, and the western Mubangi groups (Mpombo), and between these again and the other lanouaoes of the Wele- Makua and Mbomu rivers. It is presumed, but not yet certain, that the language of the Banza people is similar to Mpombo. The Madi group of the Mountain Nile and the Lado enclave (Madi, Logbwari, Abukaya, and, in the far west, Mitu) enters the Congo basin near the sources of the Wele and of the Mbomu. It also reappears in a remarkable enclave on the north side of the Wele River, between the Wele and the Werre, on either side of Long. 27°. The range of the Madi people (or language, at any rate) is as remarkable as that of the Mundu-Mpombo, just noticed — from the Asua River in Long. 32° 20' to the Wele River in Long. 26° 30'. The well- marked Madi type of language has faint affinities with the Bantu, and also with the Mafibettu, Mundu, Momvu, and Lendu groups. The Madi negroes are tall, well built, but of pronounced negro type. The intrusive Nyamnyain [Makarka, Azande) extend from the vicinity of the Nile at Dufile right across and along the basin of the Wele-Mubangi, as far eastwards as the con- fluence between that river and the Mbomu. They may even be connected linguistically with the Nsakara that dominate the western Mbomu and the reg-ions of the northern Mubang-i. The affinities of the Makarka or Nyamnyam speech are, like those of the Manbettu, one of Central Africa's many unsolved riddles. Here and there seem to be elusive glimpses of a con- nection between the Nyamnyam dialects and the Mundu- Mpombo group already referred to, but our information on both speech-families is insufficient for a decisive opinion. In physical characteristics, as numerous travellers point out, the Nyamnyam though mixed in type are negroid rather than negro. They resemble in face and body some of the hand- somer Bantu negroes, and recall in their customs and features the Hamite (Hima) aristocracies of Uganda and Unyoro. Their culture and civilization have been largely influenced by the Nilotic races. As well as the northern part of the Congo Free State, they inhabit a great deal of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region of the Egyptian Sudan. There are traces there of ancient Egyptian influence in arts, manufactures, and beliefs. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 365 The Nyamnyam^ inhabiting the northern parts of the Congo Free State are divided into the following groups (west to east) : A-banjia, A-zande, A-barambo, and Makarka.^ West of the Nyamnyam country — between the Mbomu and the Koto — is the domain of the powerful Nsakara tribe, the sultan of which has his name-place and capital at Bangaso. The Nsakara impinge somewhat on the territories of the Abanjia section of the Nyamnyam, to the south of the western Mbomu. " The primary ancestors of Sultan Bangaso (Beringa and his father, Banga) were unimportant chieftains settled on the Mbomu, Bali, and Zako. Their descendant, Boendi, grandfather of the actual chief, was the real founder of the dynasty and kingdom such as it exists at the present time. He it was who, with his four sons, Bali, Badoka, Ganda, and Mada, conquered nearly the whole of the country watered by the Mbomu and its tributaries, and established the Nsakara tribe there. " Bangaso, Bali's son, a man of an intelligence and energy rarely equalled, succeeded in getting all the power into his firm hand, and adding some conquests to those of his grandfather, Boendi, definitively created the empire as we know it to-day. "The actual sultan practises 'self-government' in the widest sense. All important decisions are settled by him. Trustworthy couriers acquaint him regularly at all hours of the day with all that is happening in the country. " The means he employs of asserting his authority are sometimes cruel, but this severity, often necessary with such subjects as are under his rule, is tempered by a great depth of natural kindness. He attends to everything himself, and never forgets anything of importance. Justice is administered by the sultan himself, who, however, leaves unimportant cases to his chiefs ; but whenever there is question of a free man or of a crime of some gravity the accused must appear before Bangaso himself. " Polygamy is practised on an extensive scale. Bangaso sets the example himself ; he has about fifteen hundred wives, who have borne him sixty children. As soon as his sons are of an age to command they are sent to different parts of the country. It is, to a certain extent, due to them that the sultan maintains his authority and is kept so well informed of all that happens in his kingdom. "The Nsakara, who dominate all the other tribes to the west and north, employ the greater part of their time in hunting and in war. Some of them, in a small way, devote themselves to trade : they are smiths, basket-makers, potters, etc. The women cultivate the land, carry burdens, and attend to all household duties. These natives are generally fairly indolent. Slavery naturally exists throughout these regions, but it is tempered by a law forbidding a master to kill his slave. ' This generic name is derived from a cant term of the Bantu borderland mean- ing " meat." The Sudanese slave-traders accused the Nyamnyam cannibals of always wanting human flesh. ^ This word is sometimes written Makaraka or Makraka. To the present writer it always sounds as Makarka with the " r " strongly trilled. 366 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Bangaso has further the right to emancipate a slave and to make of him a free man, for warHke feats or eminent services. "A child born of a free man and a slave is free. He receives, like all the Nsakara, at a certain age (about sixteen) the distinctive mark of the race — that is, four rows of lines which cross each other, tatued hori- zontally across the forehead."^ Amongst the Nsakara live the Dendi people, described by Lord Mountmorres as "lean, ragged-looking-, and wholly want- ing in the physical beauty of the Banza people farther west." The Dendi men as a rule wear a thin, long beard and an abundant moustache. North-west of the Nsakara and the Azande group of the Nyamnyam is the relatively vast country inhabited by the Banda negroes, a region vaguely known to geography as Dar Banda many years before the Congo basin was discovered. It was the resort of Arab or Nubian slave-traders for several centuries, who penetrated hither from Wadai, Darfur, and Bagirmi. Westwards of the Banda and the Nsakara, within the basin of the Mubangi, there are many tribes of unsettled affinities \_Ngizi, Dakoa, Ngapit, Lingtuisi, and Linga\ Some- times these, like the group of people called Sango on the south bank of the central Mubangi, are fine, handsome types of neoToes with intellioent faces, but without strong evidence of Caucasian intermixture. Others again are of the Forest Negro type — long-armed, short-legged, sturdy, ugly, prognathous. The Linguasi and Linga are said by Captain Boyd Alexander to be akin to the Banda. In the southern plain of the north-western Mubangi, the regrion sometimes known as Mokwancjai, all the riverside people belong (it is said) to one and the same race, which under the name of Bongo is spread through vast territories to the south of the Mubangi. The generic name for this group is not known. Bongo seems to mean "the left bank" (of a river). The people who dwell beside water are said to call themselves, in a general way, Wa-tct (from " wa," people, and "tet," river), and the natives of the interior Wagigi (from " wa," people, and "gigi," dry land). The Bwajiri, A-bodo, A-bira^ and Gembele are "Wa-tet"; the Sango, on the other hand, are "Wagigi." [Lord Mountmorres renders these terms respectively as IVa-ie and Wangene. It should be mentioned that they seem entirely foreign in root and syntax to the Sango language.] " The term ' Wagigi ' is, however, little used. The negroes employ by preference the word Bongo, which means literally ' left bank,' but ' Torday's notes. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 367 which applied to persons is constantly used to describe the great people established on the left bank of the VVele-Mubangi from the Mbomu confluence to the Bwaka country. All these natives, Wa-tet and Sango, speak the same language (?), have the same customs, the same tatuings, and the same weapons. They can only be distinguished by their mode of life. The Wa-tet show to the highest degree the character of people who dwell by the river. Admirable with the canoe, and clever fishers, they obtain a large part of their sustenance from the fish which they catch, and only seek to secure the balance by means of trade. They wear as their characteristic tatuing a line of dots starting from the occiput and ending at the nose. These blisters have more or less space between them and reach the size of a pea. Though exhibiting many variations, the head - dress of these natives usually follows one type. The hair is shaved, or cut short on the triangular surface comprised between the temples and the apex of the head. On the remainder of the head it is long and dressed in shells or little twists, deco- rated with beads or other orna- ments according to fashion. The men and women have the same head-dress. One sometimes meets with young girls who wear their hair very long. They obtain this result by combining with their own hair that of some of their ancestors, or more simply by , • -^1 I r 11 ^ ■ 200. A HARP FROM THE SANGO prolongmg It With a number of small strmgs. people of vako.m.v, on In the former case, the hair appears so the upper mubangi natural that in earlier years Europeans have been deceived by these false additions. In the latter case, it assumes such proportions that it becomes necessary to roll it in a great ball of ten or twelve inches in diameter. This ornament then becomes a veritable burden, and nothing could be more ridiculous than to see a young, pretty girl walking laden with this heavy head- dress tied up with a scarf. "Commandant Vangele measured in 1887 one of these fabrics of false hair, which, bound together in a single tress, was no less than two yards long. "The VVa-tet and Sango do not pluck hair from their bodies, but they pull out their eyelashes ; they likewise commonly shave their eye- brows, so that new ones may be traced on the brow with charcoal. These natives have little beard and do not wear a moustache. Though the women go nude and the men have for clothing only a bark loin- 368 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO cloth, they worship ornaments of every kind. Iron, copper, brass, tin, ivory, and beads of all colours serve them for the manufacture of an infinite variety of rings, bracelets, collars, earrings, pins, and amulets with which they cover themselves. They are fond of music and play on harps that are very Egyptian in appearance. Their weapons are the spear and shield. In addition they usually carry with them a knife enclosed in a sheath of antelope skin, decorated with iron or copper ornaments. " The Bongo peoples are big and muscular. They have small hands and feet. Their faces, which are open and intelligent, preserve the characteristic traits of the negro, but are not ugly. In the Bwajiri group, which is the most mixed, we even meet with many who have an aquiline, though short, nose and thin lips. The Sango are a comely people, more Sudanese in appearance than the average Bantu type.^ " The Wa-tet scarcely possess any political organization. Each village or group of villages recognizes a chief, whose powers are little more than those of an intermediary agent of the community. His authority is only exercised so far as it accords with the will of the immense majority. " Living chiefly on fishing, these people change their abode with astonishing ease. Like all the inhabitants of the Mubangi, they are polygamous and cannibals. "It is their custom to gather together in large villages of one to three hundred huts, that is to say about three hundred to a thousand souls. Their houses, of conical formation, are fifteen to twenty-one feet high, and nine to fifteen feet in diameter. They are composed of a circular wall of clay two feet to two feet eight inches in height, crowned by a grass roof " The Wa-tet scarcely occupy themselves at all with cultivation. With the product of their fishing they buy from the people of the interior manioc, bananas, and other food necessary for their support. Still, they plant a sufficient quantity of maize around their villages. " All the riverside people of the upper Mubangi manufacture great quantities of iron, which they distribute far and wide. The A-bodo, the A-bira, and the Gembele established at the confluence of the Mbomu and the Wele and below the Mbomu confluence live chiefly by this industry. Although they possess copper, the natives have a preference for brass, which has been introduced as a medium of exchange by Europeans. That which is most in demand, however, is glass ware, in the form of beads of different hues. " Barter among the natives is carried on at the markets, gatherings which take place periodically near some big village. The Sango tribes carry thither manioc, bananas, charcoal, poles for propelling boats, ropes, and threads for making nets ; also manufactured iron weapons, implements, and basket-work shields. The Wa-tet, on the other hand, sell iron, fish, native salt, beads, and other products bought in distant lands. " The interior Bongo (Sango) only differ from the Wa-tet in their mode of life. The high-lying region which they inhabit to the south of the Mubangi is covered by the dense forest already described. The ' ' Veritable giants, wonderful water men.'' (Boyd Alexander.) THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 369 necessities of life have compelled these natives to gather together in immense villages, separated from one another by considerable stretches of uninhabited country. In this way, after having crossed a district comprising eighteen hundred to two thousand huts (five to six thousand souls) one may travel through primeval forest for several days without meeting a single group of habitations. " The Bongo villages are fortified by felled timber, pits, or moats. The natives of the interior have powerful chiefs, whose authority is more fully recognized than it is among the Wa-tet or people of the river. " Not far from the villages stretch the plantations. At the cost of enormous labour great clearings are opened in the forest. Everything is beaten down and cut short. Next, fire burns up the leaves and small dry wood. The men do this preliminary work. Then the women and slaves dig up the ground, roughly cleanse the soil, setting them- selves particularly to the task of getting rid of parasitic growths. After this they plant pell-mell and almost at the same time maize, manioc, bananas, pumpkins, and other vegetables, a reason- able space being left between the plants. The plantation thus produces in succession crops of maize, vege- tables, then bananas, and finally manioc. " The Bongo peo- ples do not weed their fields except during the first half of the year for the crops of maize and vegetables. At the end of five or six months, banana trees and manioc plants struggle against the weeds which grow afresh without ceasing, and they are with difficulty disentangled from time to time. These plantations, of neglected appearance, bristling with tree trunks and obstructing every step by all kinds of remains, give a stranger the feeling of a work of giants, care- less of the petty details of vegetation. By this method, the Bongo obtain the maximum of produce and are lavishly rewarded for their toil. They never plant in natural clearings ; the soil there is not rich enough. " The Bongo are hunters too. They journey one or two days' distance from their villages, form camps in the forest, and beat the country. They track small game, antelopes, and wild pig, which they I. — 2 B 201. head of a male black forest pig (hylochcerus) 370 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO drive into nets. Large game, like the elephant, are caught in pits or trenches into which they are made to fall, where they injure themselves fatally on spears or pointed stakes. ' ^ The Sango language is absolutely non-Bantu, and is allied to that of the Mongwandi (upper Mongala River), but is quite unconnected with the Mpombo or Bamanga, or any other known group. While the Wa-tet and Sango (with whom are identical the Yakoma, Blaka, and Saka) dwell on the sonth of the Mubangi, the territories situated on the north of that river are occupied by the Babu or Biibii, the Langivasi, Dambasi, Ngapu (Ngafo), Alafibwa, and Mosokuba. These tribes use the same form of speech with only some differences in the dialect, and this language is said to be related to the Banda, much farther north. Essentially agriculturists, they maintain a constant trade with the Wa-tet, who describe them by the name of Bubu. Taller than the Wa-tet, the Biibii has usually more slender limbs. His face is more inclined to be ugly and prognathous ; its expression is distrustful and morose, and contrasts with the open and joyful air of the Wa-tet. His head approaches more nearly to the typical negro type. The tatu marks, which are not very characteristic, are composed of three lines of small points, dividing the forehead in a vertical direction. The nostrils are frequently pierced, and the Bubu wear in their lips long prisms of rock crystal or more often pieces of copal from one and a half to two inches long. They keep a peculiar breed of goats with fine, silky hair. The weapons of these natives are not of first-rate quality ; their spears have but small heads and their shields measure only one foot across by three feet in length. They use the bow and arrow as w-ell as the "hombash" or sword-knife. The Bubu are reckoned poor hunters. If native accounts are to be believed, the country to the north of the Mubangi should be thickly populated, but the villages are probably divided into small separate clusters of a few huts. Apart from the exchange of a few slaves and some produce there is no intercourse between the Wa-tet and the Bubu. Each of these nations preserv'es its distinct characteristics. Thus, for example, the Bubu cultivate certain products, notably a small potato which is not found on the left bank, though it may be brought there by barter. The Bubu often carry on a skirmishing warfare with the Wa-tet, but they are the natural enemies of the Nsakara, who 1 Torday's notes derived from Belgian sources, and information collected by Grenfell. THE NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES 371 distinguish them by the name of Alanbwa. HostiHties be- tween the Nsakara and the Alafibwa would be constant if their mutual invasions were not impeded by the River Koto, a serious obstacle which forms a natural barrier between these nations. Across the north-western Mubangi, along its right bank, mainly, are the Banziri (Bazere, Balanga), whose southern limit on the river is the last of the Grenfell Falls at Zongo. They are described by Lord Mountmorres as of splendid physique and very free from disease. This writer considered them to be related to the Bantu group, in language and customs. They are probably semi- Bantu in speech affinities : Chevalier and other French authorities consider that the Bansiri, Ndri, Pa-tri, Be-dri, Manjia, and kindred tribes of the north-eastern section of the Mubangi basin are closely related to the Baya group of the Upper Sanga. And these last, we know, are connected in lanouaofe and culture with the semi- Bantu tribes of the Cameroons hinterland and even with the Fanwe invaders of the Gaboon. In fact, in this survey of the northern tributaries of the Congo it might be repeated that all the human races therein residing, with the possible exception of the pygmies, were cannibals before European control had been established, and are cannibals now where they have not come under European influence or are not afraid of punishment for the crime. This love of human flesh characterizes almost to the same degree the Maiibettu and Azande of Hamitic type, the handsome Ababua negroes, the stalwart Bantu of the great river courses, and the ugly forest-dwelling negroes of the Aruwimi and the Monoala. 202. SMAI.I, I W IX KI'.C Kl'TAt LIO I- RDM I IIF, I.DW K.K iMl'l!AN(;i ; lil.AC K, VARNISHKl) WI IH COHAl, CHAPTER XV THE JOURNEY TO THE UNDISCOVERED BOURNE B ETWEEN 1903 and 1906 Grenfell continued at intervals his survey and exploration of the main Congo and its northern affluents. In 1903 he made the journey alluded to in chapter xiii up the Lualaba-Congo to the Hinde Cataracts. But his time was chiefly devoted to foundinor a new station at Ya- W .^^^^■■PIIWPIIP>1^K^*'*"<*M"^ lemba, from ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ which he hoped j^^^^^^^M to radiate influ- /^^^^^^^^ ence in the direc- tion of the Aru- wimi. Hither, probably, he in- tended to trans- f e r his home from Bolobo, a station much too far to the west to fit in w4th his future plans of exploration east- wards and north- wards. One of his last pieces of ex- ploration in the sense of survey work was the mapping" of the Bukatulaka channel of the Congo in the Bangala country. During 1905 he seems once again to have made some exploration of the Congo above Stanley Palis, and to have visited the eastern affluents of that section ; but the notes of these journeys have been for the most part lost, and are confined to a few annotations on maps. During this year — 372 203. A PHOTOt;RAPH OF GRENFELL, TAKEN JANUARY I906, SIX MONTHS BEFORE HIS DEATH JOURNEY TO UNDISCOVERED BOURNE 373 1905 — his health had been visibly failing. He felt very keenly the refusal of the Conoo authorities to allow him to found new stations anywhere to the east of Stanley Falls, either on the Aruwimi or on the Congo. Moreover, as the sturdy champion of the Congo State down to 1902, the revelations of the various Consuls and Commissions respecting the mis- management of the Royal Domaine, and of certain territories entrusted to concessionnaire companies, came as a great shock to his disinterested belief in the good purposes of King 204. YALEMBA, HOUSE WHERE GRENKELL LIVED PRIOR TO HIS DEATH Leopold. He was (as I think he expresses it in a letter to a Belgian) ddsorient^ : he did not know in which direction to turn for the putting straight of this Congo region, which owing to the ravages of sleeping sickness and the mistaken policy of the King-Sovereign was getting into a deplor- able condition in its central reg^ions and alonor the main course of the river. His distress of mind was the keener because he had conceived a oreat regard for certain Belgian officials, such as, for example, Commandant Malfeyt. He had known personally almost every Belgian pioneer of note, and had formed a high opinion of the majority of these men, who, as he knew, often served their king and country most disinterestedly for very low pay. 374 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO ' ' These disappointments and rebuffs, as well as the fatigues incidental to constant steamer journeys up and down the Congo connected with the mission work, prematurely aged him. In June 1906 he was seized with an unusually severe attack of black-water fever at Yalemba. He had no one with him but a few native attendants, who, when they realized his danger, transported him in an unconscious condition to the State station of Basoko ; and here, receiving medical attendance too late, he died on the ist of July 1906. Here he lies buried, having 205. GREN fell's grave AT BASOKO certainly left an imperishable name and fame in the history of the Congo, not only as an explorer of the highest order, but as one of those good and likeable men for whom no one, black or white, has anything but praise to record. He on his part was a rare exemplification of Christian charity — eager to applaud good work in others, looking everywhere for the good motive, chary of blaming or condemning without conclusive proof; absolutely incorruptible, however, and no fool to be easily gammoned into insipid acquiescence with wrong-doing — whether it be by a steamer-boy, a mission scholar, a State official, or a native chief. JOURNEY TO UNDISCOVERED BOURNE 375 In preparation for the chapters that are to follow, it might be as well to give here some of the personal opinions of Grenfell on the condition of the Congo State Territories from 1878 to the time of his death in 1906. " It has been given to me" [he writes in June 1904] "to enter upon the thirtieth year of my African life. For the first ten years (1874- 84)^ I lived under native rule, and the bitter experiences of that time have burnt themselves indelibly into my mind and memory. I saw the havoc made by the liquor traffic over wide stretches of the country, where bottles of gin and rum were the staple currency, and where it 206. .VN ARAli CAMP, LO.MA.MI KIVKR, WHKRK I 1 1 I-, INUHKNTS OCCUKKKU, REFERRED TO BY GRENFELL ON THIS PAGE was useless to go to market to buy food without them. It has fallen within my experience to see slaves brought down to the white man's store and sold for gin and rum and barter goods paid over the counter, and I have been in the midst of an Arab raid in the centre of the con- tinent, and within twenty-four hours counted twenty-seven burning or smoking villages, and had myself to face the levelled guns of the raiders. I have seen the cruel bondage in which whole communities have been held by their superstitious fears — fears that compelled them, lest a witch might be suffered to live, to condemn their own flesh and blood, and to inflict the most horrible cruelties upon them. And I have all unavailingly stood by open graves and tried to prevent the ' In commencing his review in 1874 he refers of course to his experiences in the Cameroons. He first saw the Congo in the beginning of 1878. 376 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO living being buried with the dead, and altogether have seen more of the dark side of human nature than I care to think about, and much less to write about. I claim to know better than a great many what is involved by ' native rule.' " After ten years of it I knew enough to make me grateful beyond measure when I learned that King Leopold of Belgium was taking upon his shoulders the burdens involved by the administration of the Congo territory — burdens that our own country, time and again, had refused to take up. THE RULE OF THE CONGO FREE STATE I 884-94 " A marvellous change during the second decade of my African life came over the distracted country I had previously known under the chaotic sway of hundreds of independent chiefs. I have often main- tained, and believe I have been justified in so doing, that in no other colonial enterprise, even in twice the time, had such an extent of territory been opened up and brought more or less within the range of ordered government. The drink traffic had been effectual])^ restrained within the narrowest possible limits on the coast line; cannibalism and the slave trade were no longer dominating the land and flaunting them- selves everywhere, but, greatly diminished by the persistently repressive action of the law, were being driven into dark corners and hiding- places ; and, most arduous work of all, the wave of Arab conquest which I met in 1884, and which by that time had swept from Zanzibar to Ujiji and on to Stanley Falls, and would undoubtedly have over- whelmed the Congo valley right down to the sea, was swept back by the forces organized by King Leopold, and the death-blow given to the Arab domination in Central Africa. " Seeing these splendid accomplishments, it would, indeed, have been strange if, when fitting opportunities offered themselves, I had failed to express my appreciation of the benefits conferred upon the people. But it was not on account of the people alone that I felt called upon to express my satisfaction, for routes had been opened that had previously been closed to us, a fleet of steamers had been carried overland round the cataracts and placed on the upper river, and the railway to bring this fleet into direct steam communication with the ocean was half completed. The middlemen who had so long barred the way against missionaries, and who had not hesitated to use their guns (on one occasion seriously wounding my colleague, and more than once making me their prisoner), had been overcome, and a way made clear for us right into the heart of the continent. Having personally realized such very tangible advantages, I could not withhold my poor meed of praise. I was sincerely grateful, and said so. King Leopold's reputation as a wise ruler had been eminently maintained, and his claims as a philanthropist had not been traversed. Single-handed he had accomplished more than would have been possible for the Colonial Office of one of the Great Powers. It is largely forgotten, I imagine, how great was the storm that was raised by his devotion to Congo interests, and how serious at times was the opposition of his own people as well as that of some of the Foreign Powers. JOURNEY TO UNDISCOVERED BOURNE 377 " It had been my privilege to talii^ on Ihe Congo. I. — 2 D 218. A BIG CANOE ON THE UPPER CONGO, OF THE TYPE THAT USED TO CARRY SLAVES FROM THE LULONGO TO THE MUBANGI 402 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO him, and has the meat dried to serve as food for his wife, who during the early period of lactation may not go outside the house." In 1898 Grenfell writes : — " At the market on the peninsula opposite Isangi (Lomami mouth) a few days ago five women were killed and one Isangi man — some quarrel between Topoke and Lokele. The women were eaten. A good deal of unrest is said to exist, and several carriers between here and Lopori have been killed and eaten quite recently. White men and their escorts are not interfered with, but small parties are snapped up without mercy. . . . " Though not cannibals themselves, the Bopoto people do not refuse to supply with meat their cannibal neighbours in the interior. In February 1890 they killed a woman at Bopoto for some mis- demeanour and cut her head off and kept it, but they exchanged the body with the Ngombe people at the back for the price of a couple of boys." Although Grenfell denies that the Bapoto of the northern Congo bank are man-eaters, Belgian explorers declare them to be so, though not to the same frantic extent as the far- spread Ngombe tribes and the Bangala. The Bapoto refrain — gallantly — from eating women, declaring them to be "too valuable." On the lower Mubanori women are not admitted to cannibal feasts as participants, but they are (or were, since much of these horrors are now at an end) valued greatly as the material of the banquet. The Buaka and Banziri of the north-western Mubangi preferred the flesh of women and infants, " without, however, despising that of prisoners of war and of male slaves." South of the northern Congo, along the Ruki-Juapa River, a favourite dish was a paste made of human blood and manioc Hour. All the tribes (without exception) of the Mubangi-Wele River and its affluents are or were cannibals as far as the northernmost limits of the Congo basin. The Nsakara, how- ever, when the white man came on the scene, were beginning to limit their man-eatino- to the victims sacrificed on the grraves of chiefs, consuming these holocausts of slaughtered slaves in .elaborate feasts which lasted several days. Among the Azande or Nyamnyam the flesh of the dead and of those who have fallen in battle is much appreciated. They are proud of gathering into necklaces the teeth of the victims they have eaten. Schweinfurth, Junker, and so many- other travellers have written on the cannibalism of the Nyam- BEFORE THE WHITE MAN RULED 403 nyam (whose very name is at once the evidence of their car- nivorous lust and of the farthest extension northwards of the ancient Bantu vocable "Nyama") that it is not necessary to expatiate on the subject unduly. It will, however, be re- membered that the Nyamnyam irregulars who served under Gessi Pasha against the Nubian slave-traders of the Bahr-al- Ghazal, emulated the twenty-years-later feats of the Batetela Congo soldiers in devouring the bodies of the slain. The Abanjia Nyamnyam of the northern Mubangi basin^ when their country first came under Congo State rule in 1892-8, still carried cannibalism to an extreme — eating "victims of every age, especially old men, who are, by reason of their weakness, an easier prey. A human body was never rejected as unfit for consumption unless death was due to a horrible skin disease." Accordinor to Belgian records, ' human fat serves among- the Azande for numerous purposes, but the natives declare it in- toxicates those who take too much of it.' I believe Schwein- furth also records a similar statement. Among" the Maiibettu and Mabode, " the bodies of enemies slain on the battlefield are immediately divided among the con- querors and cut up in long slices, which are boiled and carried off by way of provisions. The prisoners are brought to the village, penned up just like herds, and kept for future require- ments." The Ngombe tribes of Bwela, Buja, and other districts behind Bopoto, besides those dwelling between the north bank of the Congo and the Lopori, are also great man-eaters. " They cut up and retail the bodies of their victims with the skill of a perfect butcher. It often happens that the poor creature destined for the knife is exposed for sale in the market. He walks to and fro and epicures come to examine him. They describe the parts they prefer, one the arm, one the leg, breast, or head. The portions which are purchased are marked off with lines of coloured ochre. When the entire body is sold, the wretch is slain and stoically submits to his fate." (Torday.) Perhaps, however, the first place in this Chapter of Horrors must be given to the Basoko or Bazoko of the northern Con^o and the lower Aruwimi and to the Manyema (Bakusu) to the east of the Lualaba-Cong-o. The Basoko eat the dead as well as those who are specially killed for the feast. Only the chiefs are allowed to rest in their graves ; all other persons — except they die of infectious or disgusting diseases — are cooked and eaten, not buried. "The Basoko prefer the flesh of the thighs and breast. They cut this off in strips and eat small pieces 404 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO raw, threading the longer strips on skewers and drying and smoking the jerked meat before a fire. They also pickle human meat in jars with salt, or blend it and cover it with a grease resembling lard and used for the same purpose."^ The Basoko eat women as well as men, but usually confine them- selves to young girls or elderly matrons who have ceased child-bearinor. The Manyema practise a still more repulsive form of cannibalism. They readily eat the corpses of those who have 219. NGOMBE PEOPLE OF BWELA, BETWEEN THE NORTH CONGO AND THE TRIBUTARIES OF THE MONGALA RIVER Much given to cannibalism until recently. died of disease, but only like bodies "high." They soak them in running water till the flesh is macerated and almost putrid, and then eat this disgusting carrion without further preparation, not even cooking it. In this way they acquire a repulsive odour so characteristic of their country (between the Lualaba- Congo and N.W. Tanganyika) as to have given rise to the cant term "bouquet de Manyema."^ Cannibalism, as already stated, extends from the west coast of Tanganyika (north of the Lukuga River) to the Kwango in its lower or northern course. The practice, how- ' Torday, from Belgian Reports. BEFORE THE WHITE MAN RULED 405 ever, is extinct among the Marungu (Tabwa) peoples and the Bemba and all the tribes south of the 7th degree of S. Latitude. It no longer exists, for example, amongst the Lunda or the Kioko. But the Basongo, Bakete, Batetela, and some of the Baluba are man-eaters. As regards the Baluba, though the practice is dying out as a public custom, it still lingers as a masonic, fetishistic rite. The following account, derived from the writings of Catholic missionaries on the Kasai-Lulua, has been compiled by Mr. E. Torday : — " Here are some notes about the brotherhood of the ' Bakanzanzi ' or cannibals. Though the Baluba have the reputation of eating human flesh, still they do not all do so, but only those who are initiated into the Bakanzanzi sect. " When a Muluba wishes to become a member of it, urged by a desire to take part in the horrible feast, or in order to rid himself of the nightly importunities of some returning spirit [who formerly be- longed to the ghoulish brotherhood], he seeks one of the members, offers him a small gift, and asks to be introduced into the brotherhood. The person applied to should act as his sponsor, or as it is called here, ' father of the fetishes.' " At the next meeting of the guild, the sponsor lays on the ground the leaves of various trees, dried clots of blood, fragments of human bones, and the body of a goliath beetle. He then introduces the young aspirant, presents him with the handle of a hatchet, bids him rest one end on the leaves and spin round, while seizing the other end in both hands. Soon the aspirant becomes giddy and falls. The initiated lift him, bind round his brow a crown of human bones, and rub his body vigorously with oil and various magical ingredients till his fainting fit has ended. Then they dress him again in his best cloth, cover all his head with feathers and go outside. An old member of the company at once proceeds to prepare a thick mess of tapioca (manioc flour), a hen, and a little smoked human flesh, puts all these in an inverted skull, places on either side the large bones of a human leg, and lays the whole lot on the ground between the new member and his sponsor, who find themselves squatting face to face on a rush mat. The sponsor then takes a portion of the tapioca mess, soaked in the stew of human flesh and fowl, and several times rubs with it the tongue of the neophyte, as if to accustom him to it, then makes him swallow, bit by bit, all the contents of the skull-bowl. Now the aspirant is fortified against the power of returning spirits to injure him, in case he should wish to violate the tombs of the dead and taste their flesh. Henceforth he will be able to take part in the cannibal dances. The sponsor receives immediately one or two fowls for his trouble, and every one dances the reel of the Bakanzanzi. " [There is yet another way of making the new member giddy. His sponsor makes some slight scratches on his chest and back, into which he rubs a magic concoction ; then he hurls at his chest an arrow filled with the same ingredients, while his companions throw over his back a 4o6 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO shower of red fruit. The victim immediately falls in a swoon. They then proceed as described above.] " After a longer or shorter period, the aspirant desires to become initiated further into the more secret rites. His sponsor accordingly summons all the members of the sect, goes into the dwelling of his pupil, with all his talismans and fetishes, and binds round his brow a crown of miiku7ikuli fruit. At nightfall, both wash themselves with a purifying water in which various medicinal plants have been steeped, then go forth into the forest to find a grave, quickly uncover the corpse, carry it away at full speed to the river to wash it, and thence return to the village, while repeating without a pause these words, " Mukoke, Mulete ! Pull ! drag ! " They place the corpse in a dwelling and lie down on either side. When day breaks they put the body outside on a mat. The sponsor then seats himself on a drum holding his neophyte to his side, and bids the members build all round them a hedge of rush mats. There, sheltered from prying looks, he discloses to his pupil the secrets of the sect, the art of making magic remedies, talismans for attack and defence, and confers on him fresh immunity from ghosts and ■wicked spirits, by means of carefully mixed ingredients, enclosed in a buffalo's horn. " In the meantime an old member of the society has prepared the mess of tapioca and human flesh described above, places it at the end of his wooden spoon, and cautiously slips it inside the improvised house. When the aspirant has learnt everything, the mats are removed and both enter into another dwelling to proceed with a new rite. At the com- mand of his sponsor the new member takes in a gourd filled with kaolin (white clay), and a little dust, and whitens all his body while without the drums beat furiously. In this way he fills himself with the qualities of the spirit Mande, tutelary deity of this sect, who is sup- posed to dwell in that gourd. One of the members seizes in his left hand a small shield covered with genet skin [which has the quality of rendering one invulnerable], and in his right a spear. The aspirant in his turn seizes a human skull and a spear. Both dance a reel, come before the sponsor, and pass between his legs ; after which the skull is broken to small pieces and divided among all the performers. The new initiate receives a part like the rest which he carefully carries away to his house. This will be his principal talisman. He will no longer fear returning spirits or evil spells, and will henceforth be able to take part in the dances and feasts of the cannibals. "In what do these feasts consist? They have been described as follows : — " When the Bakanzanzi have succeeded in getting possession of a human corpse, they gather together at the confines of the village, or by preference on the banks of the neighbouring river, and there, with- out avoiding the gaze of the onlookers, they divest the body of its skin, which they throw on the fire with the clots of blood. They next cut the body down the middle to the loins and take off the head. The legs and thighs are given to the old men, the torso upper part to the young recruits, and the head and feet to the chief of the band. Each group makes an equal division among its members, who string their portions on sticks and put them to smoke over slow fires, preserving a part BEFORE THE WHITE MAN RULED 407 for the feast of the day. This last is cooked in a large earthen pot. A woman (for women are admitted to the sect) has taken care to bring and to prepare some manioc flour. " When all is ready, each comes in turn to take his portion quickly and swallow it, running and imitating the cry of the hyaena, before returning to his place. " The chief of the band is seated apart. While, with the utmost unconcern, he is boiling in a pot the victim's head, he divests of their skin the two feet which have been given him, cooks and eats them with de- liberation. "All this time the drums beat furiously, and the brotherhood, now satiated, give themselves up to a frenzied dance. After this they burn part of the bones, and catch the cinders in a small pot, on which they set a larger pot upside down. A pin at- tached to the inside of the under one is fastened by a cord to a branch fixed in the ground and bent in a bow ; in this way the victim's soul is supposed to be imprisoned. Meantime the chief has removed the flesh from the head, has carefully rubbed oil into it, burnt the brain, and slaughtered a white hen to appease the dead man's soul. The hollow of the skull is carried away to be used for magic remedies. After this ghastly performance the whole of the abominable troupe proceed to carry on the dance at the village. " There are various ways in which the Bakanzanzi obtain human flesh. Enemies slain in battle, or useless prisoners, such as old men and village chiefs, victims of the trial by poison, are generally made over to them, either gratis or for some service. When there is a deficiency of these, they proceed to violate graves, to rob them of their dead. This is frequently done, and particularly in the case of slaves and persons of small standing. When a cannibal has succeeded in following the track of a funeral procession, or if he has discovered by chance a new grave, he hastens to inform some of the brotherhood. They all go by stealth to disinter the corpse, fill up the ditch with earth, branches, and grass, and arrange everything in such a way that no trace is visible. They at once hasten to wash the body at the river, and assemble for the feast." 220 A MASK WORN BY MEMBERS OF A BALUBA BROTHER- HOOD IN CEREMONIAL DANCES (Torday collection.) CHAPTER XVII HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE I. ITS FOUNDATION A S already mentioned earlier in this book, the King of the / \ Belgians practically started the movement which led A. V to the foundation of the Congo Independent State by summoning a conference in September 1876 to sit at Brussels under his own presidency, and with M. Emile Banning as Secretary. This conference was to create an International Association for the Exploration and Civilization of Central Africa, with the special objects of abolishing the slave trade, minimising rivalry or privilege as between different religious bodies, and making a vast Free Trade area in which the commerce of all nations should receive equal treatment. Be- tween 1876 and 1883, King Leopold received the special adhesion [and to a small degree monetary help] for the general objects of his International Association from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Sir William Mackinnon, Mr. Albert Grey (afterwards Earl Grey), Cardinal Manning, and some other English men and women. But his International Association gradually segregated into a number of National Committees. That of Enoland sent o forth Keith Johnston, and one of the greatest of African explorers, Joseph Thomson, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. Consciously or unconsciously, the efforts of these British explorers were tinged with the desire to bring East Africa under British political influence, and so far as Joseph Thomson was concerned his journeys gave direct rise to the creation of British East Africa and the northern part of British Central Africa.^ The French Committee soon employed De Brazza and other travellers to create French Conoo; the Italians worked geographically and politically in Shoa and the region south of Abyssinia ; the Portuguese between Angola and Mo9ambique ; ' For both of which the present writer made the first treaties. 408 HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE and the Germans devoted their eneroies with remarkable scientific results to the exploration of the regions between Tanganyika and the Portuguese West African possessions. As reo"ards Rel""ium, her National Committee, as a branch of the International Association, was founded in November 1876, and in October 1877 the Belgians despatched their first expedition under the command of Captain Crespel to East Africa, to what were then considered the dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The Belgian explorers between 1877 and 1879 gradually- advanced towards the Tanganyika, and on the 15th of August in that year Captain Cambier founded the station of Karema on the south-east coast of that lake, now a flourishing mission of the White Fathers. All these efforts of the Belgians in the direction of Tangan- yika were — between 1877 and 1881 — mal vus on the part of the British, whether or not these feelings were avowed officially. It was always assumed in those days that the enormous per- sonal influence of Sir John Kirk, as representative of Great Britain for many years at Zanzibar, must of necessity result in the erection of that Sultanate into a vast British East African sphere of influence, wherein the Sultan and his Arab ministers might continue to rule, but under the direction and advice of a British Resident. That this position could ever be seriously contested by any Power but France was not then thought possible ; when the time was ripe, no doubt some arrangement could be come to with France which would permit British in- fluence over these regions to be more directly defined on paper. Still, the obvious colonizino- movements of the Belsfians in 1879 and 1880 inspired apprehension. But this feeling was soon to be allayed by the more direct expression of Belgian ambitions. In November 1878 there was founded at the Palace of Brussels the Committee for examining the regions of the Upper Congo, under the presidency of Colonel Strauch.^ By February 1879 Stanley definitely entered the service of this Committee at Brussels, and in August of that year commenced the creation of the Congo Independent State, ^ General Strauch (as he became) was a distinguished Belgian officer of high character. He was animated by the most genuinely philanthropic feelings towards the Negro, and a desire to undertake the amelioration of Africa without thought of gain either for himself or for his country. He was Administrator-General of the Congo State from 1885 to i888. The present writer had numerous conferences with him at one time on the subject of the creation of a great independent African state in the heart of the Congo basin which should become a Liberia on broader lines. 4IO GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The subsequent history of this movement under Stanley has already been touched on quite sufficiently for the purposes of this book.^ From its inception in 1879 to the recognition of the Congo Independent State in 1884, it was almost entirely supported by the contributions of the King of the Belgians, who was under- stood to be devoting to this purpose, besides personal funds, the large invested sum which should have been the fortune of his deceased son had he lived to reach his majority. It is also 221. THE ATLANTIC ASPECT OF THE BEACH AT BANANA POINT, CONGO MOUTH Banana Point, the main seaport of the Belgian Congo, was not acquired bj* the Slate until 1885. understood that when the enterprise assumed a more directly Belgian aspect in 1887 King Leopold returned to the various ^ This note may be useful for reference in connection with the dates of Stanley's operations : — Comite d'Etudes du Haut Congo was founded in December 1878. Stanley arrived at Banana on the 14th of August 1879, bringing with him the En Avaut the Royal. The Eti Avant was forty-three feet by eight, and the Royal thirty feet by six. Vivi was founded September 1879, Isangila January 1881, Neve on January 26 1881. Manyanga was founded in May 1881. Stanley reached Stanley Pool July 27 1881. Leopoldville was founded December 1881. The En Avant reached Stanley Pool in November 1881. On the 19th of April 1882 a steamer first starts for the upper river. In May 1882 Lake Leopold was discovered, and Bolobo founded at the close of that year by Captain Hanssens. In August 1882 Stanley returned to England. On December 14 1882 he returned to the Congo, reaching Stanley Pool in March 1883. On the 9th of May 1883 the A.I A., the En Avant, and the Royal left Leopoldville for the upper river. On the 13th of June Equatorville was founded under Vangele and Coquilhat. In August 1883 Bolobo was burnt to the ground. On the 22nd of September Glave w^as left at Lukolela. On the 21st of October Liboko was reached. On the ist of December 1883 Stanley Falls station was founded, with Binnie in charge. Stanley returned to England in June 1884. HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE 413 British contributors in the form of bonds with deferred interest the sums which they had advanced towards what was originally an international experiment. [The total outside contributions were computed at ^16,888.] That the intention of the Kingf of the Belgrians in those days was purely philanthropic — and even to a great extent international — may be realized by his appointment of the high- minded Sir Frederic Goldsmid as his first Commissioner (July 1883), and by the subsequent designation of General Gordon {January i 1884) as his Agent-General on the Congo. Gordon being called away from this task of creating' a vast free negro state in the Congo basin by the superior claims of the Egyptian Sudan, Sir Francis De Winton, also a British officer of dis- tinction, was nominated instead, and was the first Administrator- General of the State from June 1884 to the end of 1885.^ Up to this period, the constitution of the State in the selection of officers of his^h commands had been so Enolish in complexion as to have given umbrage to France. It was not an unreasonable step therefore that once his State had received international recognition King Leopold should desire to be represented on the Congo by a Belgian. Consequently M. Camile Janssen succeeded Sir Francis De Winton in the principal post at the end of 1885. M. Janssen for some period of his government was represented at Stanley Pool and elsewhere in the inner basin of the Congo by an Administrator or Vice-Governor, Baron von Nimptsch. M. Janssen was succeeded in 1891 by General Wahis (now Baron Wahis), who is practically still, at the time of writing, the Governor-General of this vast domain. During the period of government of M. Janssen the Congo Independent State was in rather a weak condition, and Belgian rule was to a certain extent cut athwart by Stanley's Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, the King-Sovereign having entrusted cer- tain powers to Stanley (who remained to the day of his death associated with the Congo State) to settle the Arab difficulty in eastern Congroland. In some respects it may be said that the really direct Belgian government of the Congo scarcely commenced until the as- sumption of power by Baron Wahis in April 1891. But from the departure of Sir Francis De Winton in 1885 down to the present day there has been one element of great weakness in the Belgian direction of affairs : the administrative ' Sir Francis De Winton proclaimed the independence and constitution of the Congo State at Banana, July 19 1885. 414 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO capital has been at Boma on the Lower Congo, close to the sea, and not — where it should have been, at least from the date of the opening of the railway — at Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool, or even farther inland, at some commanding position on the main Congo. From the commencement of the Cataract region west of Stanley Pool, onwards to the coast, the territories of the Congo State constitute little more than a line of communication with the ocean. The Belgian surroundings of Boma are re- stricted ; all the questions of the Cataract region are relatively 223. THE POST OFFICE AT BOMA trivial compared to the gigantic issues which begin at Stanley Pool and end on the Semliki and on the west coast of Tangan- yika. It is probable that we should have heard very little of Con^o atrocities if the Governor-General had resided with all his staff around him on the Upper Congo. Seeing is believing. Far away at Boma, with his face turned towards the ocean [distant a few hours' steaming], and three hundred miles of dis- agreeable, rocky country traversed by a steamer trip and two days' railway journey intervening between the Court of Boma and the beginning, at Stanley Pool, of those nine thousand miles of river and lake navioation — these limitations have made it scarcely more easy for the Belgian Governor-General of the HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE 415 Congo at Boma to gauge and grapple with the awful problems that must be raised by European interference with the lives of millions of negroes than if he lived at Brussels, and merely acted on the written reports of his subordinates. The first weakness of the Congo Government was the ques- tion of money. King Leopold — and behind him the Belgian nation — seemed to have bitten off more than they could chew. They had undertaken a task of colossal magnitude in African enterprise, the obligation to bring under effective control nine hundred thousand square miles of territory in the very heart of Africa, of which nine-tenths was situated at a distance 224. IIR-I I ( .NMKN I c — ^ — 227. FACSIMILE OF A PORTION OF THE SKETCH MAP BY BARON DHANIS, PRESENTED BY HIM TO GRENFELL IN 1890 Englishman or Dutchman in Southern Asia. The nucleus of the Congo State army under Commandant Dhanis was respectable enough : the Hausas, the Sierra Leone men, the Liberians, probably kept within the canons of decent warfare. But the vast horde of irregulars — Batetela, Manyema, Baluba, under the orders of Congo Lutete, were frantic cannibals, just as was the case with the seven or eight thousand irregular HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE 429 troops attached to the Arab forces who came from somewhat similar tribes. The loss of life in each contest was terrific. Men were shot, speared, knifed, drowned, and invariably eaten. Prisoners seem to have been issued as rations by the native commanders of both the armies ; indeed, Grenfell (writing from hearsay of this warfare from the west) and Hinde, from closer knowledge, allude to instances of men and women being handed over to these wild soldiers for their food allowance that were cut to pieces as they stood, and devoured as soon as their flesh could be cooked. Nothino- but a few bones were left of the killed on the morning after every fight. The crocodiles swarmed in all the big^ rivers to devour fugritives who took to the water as their last chance. As to the Arabs, when in the earlier stages of this struggle they caught a Belgian living, they would flog him to death and leave his mangled remains to be cooked . . . ^ and eaten by the auxiliaries. The only two Belgians who were destroyed with anything like decency by the Arabs were Lieutenants Lippens and Debruyne, the Resident and his secretary at Kasongo, who in a sense were held as hostages till the Arab defeats succeeded one after the other. They were then put to death with knives, and even cut into pieces, but were carefully buried, and had a neat ornament erected over their common grave. On the other hand, such Arabs as fell into the power of Dhanis's native irregulars were killed and eaten, though it is only right to point out that the Belgians succeeded in saving a number of their Arab prisoners, and that the cases of court- martial of Arabs accused of complicity in the death of Europeans were conducted with impartiality. The stories of the capture of Nyangwe and Kasongo read like episodes in an impossible Rider Haggard romance. These brilliant victories were followed by sordid misfortunes — out- breaks of smallpox and influenza. The splendidly built towns of the Arabs were destroyed, so that in the case of Nyangwe, scarcely a vestige has remained. These crowning victories, moreover, were followed by an incident more shocking to our sense of honour by far than the subsequent execution of the Englishman Stokes.^ Congo Lutete, the Manyema hero, who had turned the fortune of war ' Charles Stokes was a fine, handsome-looking man, a native of the north of Ireland, who came out about 1880 to East Africa in order to organize the caravans of the Church Missionary Society passing between the Zanzibar coast and the A'ictoria Nyanza. He obtained a great influence over the natives, and was often asked to organize trustworthy caravans for other travellers. He arranged, for example, at the outset the Kilimanjaro Expedition led by the present writer. Some years later he 430 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO in the beginning of the struggle, and had won victory after victory over the Arabs, he, in fact, who alone had made this extraordinary conquest possible to Dhanis, in some way came into the power of Lieutenant Duchesne, a Belgian officer on the Lomami River, Gongo Lutete trusted himself confidingly to this man's control. A charge of conspiracy was suddenly trumped up against him, a court-martial was summoned, and Gongo Lutete sentenced to be shot. Though stao;crered at this act of inconceivable ingratitude and baseness, he resigned himself to death, and attempted to hang himself with a rope made from his clothing. He was cut down, revived, haled out of prison, and shot with every circumstance of ignominy. The action, as recorded by Hinde, remains to this day inconceivable. For a time the native forces were too much stunned to carry out any plan of revenge, but the murder of Lutete fermented in their minds. Soon after this another incident occurred which, for the first time, caused bad blood between Belgium and Great Britain regarding the Congo. In 1895 Captain Lothaire, who had taken a very gallant part in the Arab war, was clearing up the remains of that war in the upper Lindi country (south of the Aruwimi-Ituri) when he was made aware that a Air. Stokes was in the neiohbourhood, having" travelled thither from the Victoria Nyanza. He was informed that Stokes was buying ivory from the Manyema and Arabs in the region bordering on Lake Albert Edward, and that he was supplying them in exchange with gunpowder and ammunition. Lothaire summoned Stokes to a conference, and Stokes, apparently never dreaming of the result, came to Lothaire's camp at Lindi ^ with a few followers only. He was immediately arrested, tried, sentenced, and a few hours afterwards hung. The act was outrageous, yet it does not seem to my mind such a blot on the Belgian record as the murder of Gongo Lutete, their great negro ally. Stokes, I fear, was keeping the Arab struggle alive by supplying them with munitions of war ; but under the circumstances a sen- tence of imprisonment at Boma and deportation to Europe, when the charge was proved, would have met the case amply. There was something bred of savagery in his judicial murder. Although retribution for the execution of Gongo Lutete took two years to mature, it fell heavily on the Belgians. By ceased his direct connection with the Mission and took up a general transport and trading business on his own account. He had very great influence in Uganda, and his intervention in the affairs of that State is recorded in my book on the Uganda Protectorate. ' On the upper Lindi River. HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE this time they had paid off most of their Hausas and other foreign negro troops, and relied chiefly on the indigenous Bangala of the Northern Congo, and the Batetela and Manyema from the east and south. Amongst the Batetela, who were chiefly stationed on the Lulua River, the remembrance of the death of Congo Lutete smouldered, till at last (Luluabourg, July 1895) they broke out into open mutiny, killed their command- ing officer (Capt. Peltzer), and marched north and east. Baron Dhanis composed the mutiny by military action and negotia- tion. But it broke out again at the beginning of 1897, as Dhanis was leading a large force of men to occupy the Lado enclave. At Ndirfi, in the Nile basin, the Batetela turned on their officers, killing Capt. Leroi and several others, and making off southwards with large stores of arms and ammunition. Dhanis and a few other BelQ-ian and Norweg-ian officers managed with great difficulty to regain Stanley Falls, where they organized a new army to pursue the mutineers. The revolted Batetela soldiers ranged chiefly through the Manyema country east of the Lualaba-Congo. The followinor note on the Batetela mutineers and on the officers of the Congo forces is contributed by Mr. Emil Torday : — " The Batetela are a fine race of warriors, who form the best soldiers to be found in the Congo. But much tact is necessary to lead them, for they have in them the spirit of rebellion which is not found among the other tribes. With a firm but kind officer the Batelela will do anything, but weakness or exaggerated severity drives them to rebel- lion. The officers of the Congo State are for the main part Belgians, Italians, and Scandinavians. Of these the palm in later days is certainly due to the Scandinavians. [I write this without detriment to the heroic Belgians who served with Dhanis in the Arab war or carried the Congo flag to the Bahr-al-Ghazal.] These men possess as a rule a very good education, and that which is of great importance for the white man when he has to command primitive peoples, they are very correct in their dealings. They are exceptionally bold, and their Northern blood gives them that coolness which cannot be found amongst the others. Some of these Scandinavian officers have won the heart of their people by one simple act of daring by which they show distinctly that however brave the negro be he cannot approach the white man. Shortly before the mutineers took Kabambare the State troops were surprised by them one evening. They retired about two hundred yards behind their camp fires whilst the mutineers camped at about two hundred yards from the other side. The avant-garde was commanded by a Swedish officer who is now aide-de-camp of the King of Sweden. Whilst waiting for events to develop he took a cigarette from his pocket and was looking for a match that he could not find. So he walked slowly up to the camp fire whilst the enemy began furious firing 432 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO against him. That did not make him hasten. He took up a burning brand, lit his cigarette, and returned slowly to his soldiers without even once turning round on the enemy, from whom hundreds of bullets were coming. It may be easily imagined how the soldiers were impressed by this. Some short time after this, Kabambare was attacked by the rebels, the State forces were repulsed and obliged to abandon the place. Amongst those who defended the town was the Swedish officer. He was badly wounded. The whole forces of the State retired, but his own fifty soldiers refused to follow them, saying they would stick to their officer to the last man. Four hours after the troops had been routed those fifty men, commanded by their black sergeant, kept the fort, and when, at last, overwhelmed, they were 228. CONGO STATE STATION OF BASOKO, NEAR CONFLUENCE OF ARUWIMI (Where Grenfell is buried.) obliged to retire, two of the strongest men carried the wounded officer, the troops surrounding them and fighting their way through. Only fifteen out of the fifty arrived at the main camp, but they had brought their officer with them." On November 15 1898 Grenfell writes : " Kabambare taken by revolted Batetela. Four Belgian officers killed, two guns taken, and all the stores lost." A month or so later the place was retaken by Baron Dhanis. On the 15th of January 1899 Lieutenant BelP was killed at Mondimbe, near Basoko, and Van der Schinck of Boyulu was killed on an expedition to ' Grenfell refers to Captain Maurice Bell, a British Militia officer who had entered the service of the Congo State. HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE the south. On the 17th of February Captain Descamps was attacked by Arabs and mutineers at Bafwa-boli (near the Lindi River), but he succeeded in driving them off, losing one or two men and several women and children prisoners. About this period Grenfell writes that the Belgians are endeavouring to prevent the Arabs committing cruelties on the people (in the districts where the Arabs have submitted), but that the number of headless corpses met with in the lands behind the river banks shows that the Arabs are still maltreating the natives. On the 2nd of March 1899 he writes : — " M. of Bafamba tells me that since the Goodwill went upstream a prisoner was brought in to L e, who after wanting to kill the said prisoner was persuaded to let him go. As he was going away he took his rifle and shot him through the back ! He afterwards gave the body- to the Ngombe, who ate it ! This story I got bit by bit, and with every appearance of its being true. The soldiers may be ruled by Bula Matadi, but they rule the people. M. tells me that the Commandant has been informed of this affair, and also of another similar one. " He tells me that the Commandant shot the sergeant who was with Bell because he had deserted his chief The sergeant, however, showed three wounds in front in evidence of his having done all he could. He was an Abango-bango man. Bell's head was brought to market to prove that the warrior had really killed a white man. His body was eaten. His revolver was found on a native a few days later and resulted in the said native being shot. Only two out of thirty guns taken have been returned, but women and children are held as ransom for the others, and it is expected they will soon come in. Bell killed eight natives with his revolver before he succumbed. He received a spear- thrust through the thigh which prevented his keeping up a standing fight. It was not till he was speared through the body from behind that he gave up the struggle. ... I hear before leaving the Falls that Van der Schinck was surprised in camp and mortally wounded. He was carried back to Boyulu by some faithfuls, but expired before the following morning. Soon after he was buried the station was attacked and pillaged and his body was taken out of the grave and mutilated. . . ." Driven out of Manyema by Dhanis and Descamps, the rem- nant of the mutineers marched northwards towards Uganda, under the vague idea of joining hands with the Uganda mutineers in a general rising of black men against the white tyrants.^ But for the dogged bravery and persistence of Dhanis they would have effected their purpose, but they were pertinaciously followed ; until at last, worn out with hunger, ' In case we should moralize too much over the revolted Manyema soldiers and the misery they inflicted on eastern Congoland, vi'e might remember that ttr, simultaneously, were combating a mutiny of our Sudanese troops in Uganda and a formidable native insurrection. I. — 2 F 434 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO disease, and fatigue, their miserable remnants passed over into German East Africa, or even found their way as suppliants to the Uganda Protectorate, where a few of them were given the means of settling down by the present writer. It is movements like these that have justified a warning from time to time that the good or ill condition of the Congfo •basin is a matter of nearly as much concern to the limitrophe Powers as it is to the King- Sovereign himself It is equally the case with regard to the welfare of Portuguese East or West Africa, British Central Africa, Uganda, Nigeria. Racial movements in Africa spread far more rapidly than we are inclined to assume. Even the best-governed territory of this continent contains the germs of dissatisfaction, just as would an England or a Belgium admirably administered by Japanese or by American negroes. It is true that as a rule the negro has very little sympathy with the negro, and readily enlists under the white man's banner to subdue or slay other negroes. Yet, every now and then, once in fifty years perhaps, a not-easily- defined wave of feeling pulsates through this or that African region, some electricity which for a moment fuses all internecine dislikes and jealousies, and for a brief while ranges all the black men in spirit against the handful of white men who are tyrannizing over them. 229. RED-BRONZE COLOURED POT OF THE ABANGO-BANGO PEOPLE (Basoko country, Aruwimi confluence.) CHAPTER XIX HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE III. ADVANCE TO THE NILE AND LATER DEVELOPMENTS AFTER the extraordinary successes of the Belgian arms / \ over the Tanganyika Arabs in 1893 there was a great ^/ V extension of Belgian or Congo State ambition and geographical discovery, especially towards the regions in the north and north-east. Already, in 1887 and 1889, Lieutenant Vangele, a clever young Belgian who was one of Stanley's earliest recruits, had continued Grenfell's exploration of the Mubangi River. Ascend- ing this stream at flood, he had managed to pass the Zongo rapids, and had traced it eastwards as far as its junction with the Mbomu. By 1891 Roget had co-operated with Vangele in founding a post at Jabir on Schweinfurth's Wele.^ In the north-east, beyond the Aruwimi River, enterprise had been checked by the fierceness of the Manyema slave-traders, allies and confederates of the Tanganyika Arabs. The murder of Emin Pasha had daunted exploration in this direction. But in 1892 Van Kerckhoven had traced the Mubangi-Dua- Makua-Wele to its very source within two or three days' journey of Wadelai, on the White Nile.^ In 1892 Georges Le Marinel and Hanolet, and in 1893, Nilis and de la Kethulle had taken even bolder flights. They had pushed northwards from the ^ Jabir, as already related, was a Nyamnyam (A-banjia) trader and petty chief who after the collapse of civilized government in the Sudan had settled down with his guns and superior knowledge on the Wele River as an independent potentate. Jabir's dim acquaintance with the outer world beyond the heart of Africa and his remem- brances of white men like Lupton Bey led him to receive the Belgians very kindly in the days when they were but feebly supported in traversing these wild regions. Nevertheless, though his co-operation assured the safety of their pioneering expedi- tions, they cjuarrelled with him in 1904-5, and in 1905 he was captured by the Belgian force ; and executed. Lupton Bey, it must be remembered, before his capture by the Mahdists in 1885, had been a wonderful explorer. He was a remarkably intelligent young Englishman engaged for the service of the Egyptian Government in the Bahr-al-Ghazal. Highly popular with the natives, he travelled far and wide to the west and south of the Egyptian dominions, and his fame going before him made it easy for other Europeans to follow in his footsteps. He died [the Mahdi's prisoner] in 1892. ^ Van Kerckhoven was killed by a gun accident on August 10 1892. 435 436 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Mbomu affluent of the Mubangi till they had explored the basin of the Shinko and had reached the north-westernmost limits of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region and even the vicinity of Darfur and the Bahr-al-Arab watercourse. Schagestrom, Milz, Daenen, Becker, Chaltin, Lothaire, Paul Le Marinel, and Bricusse explored the mysterious lands on the confines of the Bantu, between the Wele on the north and the Conoro and Aruwimi on the south. Ponthier had elucidated the geography of the Bomokandi, the first orreat feeder of the Wele River/ and Hecq had traced the Mbomu to its source Milz in September 1892 had even reached the Nile near Bedden, and in June 1893 Captain Delanghe had occupied Muggi, Lahore, and Dufile on the left bank of the mountain Nile. So successful and relatively bloodless were these expeditions that the Sovereign of the Congo Independent State no doubt in his heart of hearts was a little inclined to lauoh at the timiditv of the English. For, between 1885 and 1898, the British Government and its representatives in Egypt felt a very real dread of adventure in the Sudan, and no doubt attributed to the forces of the Khalifa a far greater degree of power than they possessed over the tribes in the region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal and alonor the White Nile above Fashoda. King Leopold knew of course that the British shrank not only from the serious monetary cost of reconquering the Sudan, but from provoking a war with France by displaying their ambition to revive the lost Egyptian empire over these regions. Just as he had stepped in amongst the jealous Powers in 1884 with regard to the possession of the western Congo, so it seemed to him that the situation presented by Central African affairs in 1894 was the opportunity for extending his dominion north-eastwards from the Congo to the Nile ; perhaps even northwards to Lake Chad. For by April 1893 expedition under Hanolet, Van Calster, and Stroobant had explored the Bali and Koto affluents of the Mubangi and penetrated across the water-parting to Belle within the basin of the Shari. So far the Belgian forces had attempted no tussle of strength with any strong Dervish post in the Nile valley.- But in 1894 the forces of the Khalifa reoccupied much of the mountain 1 He fought a successful battle with Manyema Arabs on the Bomokandi and checked their movement westwards towards the Mubangi, 27 October 1891. - This bubble was to be pricked by the daring of Marchand and his com- panions— the French expedition which in 1S95-7 traversed Africa from the Gaboon to Lado, beat the Dervishes in several encounters, and planted the French tlag at Fashoda. one of the most remarkable feats of daring and endurance to be found in the history of Africa. HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE 437 Nile and of the Bahr-al-Ghazal. They had furious encounters with the Conoo forces under Delanohe, Gerard, and Donckier, and later on under Francqui, the Katanga explorer. The Dervishes attempted to invade the Congo basin, but were decisively routed and made to retire to the main Nile. This intervention of the Belgians saved Uganda from a Mahdist invasion. Already, in 1886, when the relief of Emin Pasha was being discussed, King Leopold had cast his glances at Emin's little State of Equatoria, and in 1890 he was supposed to have obtained from Sir William Mackinnon, then Chairman of the Imperial British East Africa Company, a promise or understanding that the Company's forces would leave open to the King of the Belgians the eventual occupation of what is now known as the Lado Enclave. In 1894 therefore the well-known but unfortunate boundary treaty was concluded between Great Britain and the Congo State. It admitted Belgium to a leasehold over the Bahr- al-Ghazal and the Lado Enclave, whilst Great Britain ob- tained in exchange a recognition of her rights over the rest of the Egyptian Sudan, a small piece of additional territory at the south-west corner of Tanganyika, improvements in her frontier round about Lake Bangweulu, and a narrow strip of land to connect the north end of Tanganyika with Uganda. This treaty brought to a crisis the counterclaims of France and Germany. Germany compelled Great Britain to abandon the only asset of real value in it — the strip of land between Ankole and Tanganyika, which would have made the Cape to Cairo route complete. France insisted on stopping the Belgians at the Mbomu River, and practically thereby ear- marked for herself the whole region of the Bahr-al-Ghazal up to and beyond Fashoda. It was, however, before Lord Kitchener's defeat of the Arabs and the withdrawal of the Marchand Expedition that the Congo Independent State definitely occupied the Lado Enclave, The advance southwards of the Dervishes to Bor and the mutiny in 1897-8 of Dhanis's troops at Ndirfi on the edge of the Nile basin checked at first the Belgian advance Nile wards, but Captain Chaltin on the 14th February 1897 inflicted two crushinCT defeats on the Dervish forces and hoisted the Congro flag at Rejaf, opposite Baker's old station of Gondokoro. In 1895 in 1 901 the question of a Belgian annexation of the Congo was actively discussed in Belgium. But although (in 1892) the Belgian Constitution was revised to make it possible for that country to possess colonies, and King Leopold 438 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO signed treaties of annexation in 1895 and made his will in favour of Belgium in 1889 and 1901, nothing practical came of these pourparlers. The judicial murder of Stokes in 1895, and the articles of Glave on his journey across Africa and through the Congo State [published in 1896-7 in the Century Magazine^, combined to produce a disagreeable impression in England and America that all was not well in the style of Congo administration and commercial development. In 1899 and 1900 the Batetela mutineers, thought to have been completely quelled by Baron 230. REV. LAWSON FORFEITT'S HOUSE AT NEW UNDERHILL, NEAR MATADI, LOWER CONGO Glave after crossing Africa reached Matadi very ill and exhausted, and died at Mr. Forfeitt's house at Old Underhill, a little lower down the river. Dhanis and others, became exceedingly troublesome in the south-east, necessitating arduous campaigns. The misdeeds of the agents of the Societe Anversoise in the north had raised terrible revolts amongst the Buja and the Ababua. In 1 90 1 a great sensation was made by the arrest of Rabinek, an Austrian trader who had approached the south- eastern part of the Congo Free State from British Central Africa, obeying all the regulations, and furnishing himself with the necessary documents. Nevertheless Rabinek was arrested by Major Weyns on the African Lakes Company's steamer Scotia, a British steamer, and within British waters on Lake Mweru. At Mtoa, Rabinek was sentenced by Major Weyns for supposed illegal trading to twelve months' imprisonment and HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE a fine of i,ooo francs. Desirous of appealing at Boma against this sentence, Rabinek was despatched thither on a journey of more than 1,500 miles with scant provision for his comfort. The result was that he died of fever before reaching his journey's end. It was further alleged that Rabinek's property to the value of 5,000 was confiscated by the State authorities. The successors of the Livingstone Inland Mission — the Congo-Balolo missionaries — who had chosen as their domain the Balolo country south of the Upper Congo, where the Crown Lands of King Leopold were situated ; also the American Presbyterian Mission, which had established stations on the 231. AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSION CHURCH AT STANLEY POOL Kasai and the Lulua, and the American Baptist missionary Sjoblom had from 1899 to 1902 been transmitting terrible stories of the behaviour of the agents of Concessionnaire companies and of such State forces as were placed at their disposal. Sir Charles Dilke took up the cause of the Congo natives in the Parliament and Press of Great Britain. The Aborigines Protection Society of Great Britain had already in 1896 moved the British Governm.ent to champion the cause of the native races in Africa, more especially in the Congo basin. The researches of the Aborigines Protection Society were summarized and pub- lished in 1903 in a remarkable book by Mr. H. R. Fox-Bourne.^ ' Civilizatioti ifi Congoland, a Story of International Wrong-doing, by H. R. Fox-Bourne : London, 1903. 440 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO The Congo peoples were to have another champion, how- ever, who by appealing possibly to a wider audience has achieved remarkable results. Mr. E. D. MoreV for ten years employed in the shipping office of Messrs. Elder Dempster, was, on account of his intimate knowledge of French, despatched by that firm to Antwerp and Brussels to take charge of the business of their Congo line of steamers, a line subsidized by the Congo Independent State. Mr. Morel, becoming intimately acquainted with the policy which was being adopted by King Leopold and the Congo State towards the natives, a policy which he defined as "a vast system of criminal oppres- sion," became so incensed at this wrong-doing, that, in 1 901, he renounced his employment with the Liverpool shipping firm and constituted himself the champion of the Congo peoples. He founded the Congo Reform Association in 1904 and be- came its unpaid secretary and organizer. As the result of the agitation which grew up in England and Scotland after the essays and speeches of Dilke, Fox- Bourne, and Morel, the British Government directed their Consul on the Congo, Mr. Roger Casement, to visit the regions to which the principal atrocities were attributed. Mr. Case- ment's report created a great sensation, as did also the state- ments of the Rev. J. H. Weeks of the Baptist Mission. These were amongst the causes that determined King Leopold to appoint a commission of his own, consisting of one Swiss, one Belgian, and one Italian, to visit the Congo basin and report to His Majesty on the condition of affairs. Long prior to this, in 1896, the King had appointed a kind of committee from amongst the missionary societies (Catholic and Protestant) to protect the rights of the natives, and George Grenfell was its secretary ; but, as he himself remarks in his letters, this com- mittee was a nullity." The members of it were separated in some cases a thousand miles from each other, and several hundred miles from the Domaine de la Couronne or the terri- 1 Mr. Morel, according to an article in the World newspaper (December 4 1906), is directly descended on the maternal side from the celebrated Count van Hoorn of the Netherlands revolt against Spain (executed on the market-place of Brussels by Alva, 1568). After this tragedy the van Hoorn (de Home) family emigrated to England [Norwich], where they became Quakers. Mr. Morel's father was of French extraction, of the family of Morel-de-\'ille. " If the Authorities are really in earnest about rectifying abuses they can do it without a Commission of Missionaries, and if they are not in earnest it will require a Commission with a very different constitution to produce any practical result. Not one of the Commissioners resides in the districts where the cruelties are reported ! I think I am nearest and I am two hundred miles away ! If in serving on this Com- mission I can serve the Congo, I shall be very, very glad, but I confess I am not very sanguine." (Grenfell to A. H. Baynes, November 26 1896.) HISTORY OF THE CONGO STATE tories of the concessionnaire companies where the wrong-doing was taking- place. No provision, I believe, was made for the travelling expenses of this committee, nor were any facilities given to its members for obtaining evidence. But the King's Commission, though it was long in producing its report, gave to the world no reassuring account as to the native policy of King Leopold's Government, in fact did very little to dissipate the effect produced by the previous accusations of consuls and missionaries. Then in February to March 1906 occurred the Five Days' Debate in the Belgian House of Representatives, resulting in terrible denunciations of the Leopoldian system and a moral victory for the party of reform. In June 1906 King Leopold issued several remarkable declarations regarding his attitude and intentions towards the Congo,^ defending the policy of spending the Congo surpluses and revenues on Belgium. The complete disparity between the King's views and his interpretation of his rights and the opinions of the Belgian party of reform and of the signatory Powers of the Act of Berlin brought the Congo Question to a crisis. Belgian annexation on a just basis consistent with the provisions of the Berlin Act and the recog- nition of native rights is the solution favoured by all reasonable men and women while these words are being printed. Meantime the present condition of affairs in the Congo Free State may be summed up as follows : Considerable progress in railway construction, but much native discontent in the north- centre and east. As regards the southern or south-western portion of the Congo territories the situation is unsatisfactory. In the vicinity of Luluabourg, on the Lulua River, is the resi- dence of the powerful chief of the Zappo-Zaps. This individual was a head-man or brigand chief of the Basonge people, a war- like race dwelling; between the Sankuru and the Lomami and probably related to the Bakuba and Batetela. The Zappo-Zap chief enrolled himself first of all as an ally of the Arabs. He thus gathered round him a considerable following of Manyema, Batetela, and other warlike raiders. After the Arabs were crushed he took the side of the Congo Free State, and was allowed to establish himself with a strong following^ of Basong-e warriors as a ruling- chief between the Lulua and the Sankuru. There can be little doubt that of late years this man has carried on a slave trade as unblushing and as disastrous as the Arabs did in their worst days. The slaves in question are despatched ^ Africa No. i (1907). Correspondence respecting the Independent State of the Congo, pp. 4 to 12. 442 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO through the Lunda country towards Angola, and it is certain that most of them find their way to the Portuguese cocoa- planting islands. It is not necessary at this juncture to launch out into an attack on the plantation system of Sa5 Thome or Principe : the Portuoruese authorities on the Anoola coast no longfer find themselves able to defend it. Large numbers of hapless negroes from the Luba, Lunda, and Bailundo territories have been enrolled as labourers for a seven years' term of service. There is no doubt that they are well and kindly treated once they reach Sao Thome. But when their time is up they are homeless people, as it is impossible for them to return to their homes in the heart of Africa. Indeed, they have no desire to do so, knowing that they would run the risk of being re-enslaved or eaten by their compatriots. So they drift back into virtual slavery at Sao Thome. But that Zappo-Zap and Portuguese half-castes should be allowed to carry on these dev^astating razzias is indeed a blemish on the fame of the Conoro State and of the kingdom of Portugal. At one time this matter was taken up by the American Presbyterian missionaries on the Lulua River. They appealed to a Vice-Governor of the State or to some passing official of lesser rank, and obtained from him the enunciation of the principle by which any person declared a slave by Zappo-Zap or any other chief could at once claim his freedom on payment of sixteen pieces of cloth. No sooner did this edict become known than enormous crowds of people flocked to the State posts or to the mission stations, each with his or her sixteen pieces of cloth, claiming the letter of freedom. Some few certificates of freedom were issued, and proved potent in their effects, owing to the almost religious reverence with which the ne^ro regards a written document. But Zappo-Zap complained. A more authoritative representative of the State came on tour and examined into this question, and annulled the edict {teste the Rev. ]\I. Martin).^ He said, "There is no slavery in the Congo Free State, consequently these people have no need of certificates of freedom. At the same time, we cannot interfere between a chief and his people." The result has been to increase the power of Zappo-Zap, and to cause at the time these words are being written a condition ^ Of the American Presbyterian Mission, Kasai-Lulua rivers. It was the Rev. W. M. Morrison of this mission who first drew attention to the atrocious mis- deeds of Zappo-Zap's people, when he addressed in 1899 a direct personal appeal to King Leopold. 444 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO of miserable unhappiness amongst the people confided to the charge of this unmitigated scoundrel. Further to the west in this central part of the Kasai basin there is another chief as powerful as Zappo-Zap, but no ally — on the contrary, a bitter enemy — of the Congo Free State. This is Kalambo, of whom more may be heard in the future. He is now recognized by the people as the king of the Bena Lulua.^ Since the crumbling of the Lunda empire, which in a sense has gone to sleep under the easy rule of Portugal, the only really independent and prominent native potentate in south-central Congoland is Kalambo. His territory is long rather than broad, stretching as it does westwards from the vicinity of the upper Sankuru River across the central Kasai into the eastern part of Portuguese West Africa — the land of the Tukongo, Tupindi, Bena Lulua, and Bakioko. Kalambo is not actually hostile towards the Portuguese, who leave him very much to himself, but he displays a deadly hostility towards " Bula Matadi." In earlier days he was on friendly terms with the first pioneers of the Congo Free State. Through them or from the Arabs he received — or later on, captured — large quantities of arms of precision and cartridges. But he and his people were treated in a fashion which can only be called outraoeous bv the aorents of a certain concessioniiaire company, or by one or two officers of the State. He turned therefore against the Belgian power, and inflicted on its forces several severe defeats. After this he announced that he wished no longer to fight with the white man, if the white man would leave him alone ; his territory would be limited by such-and-such rivers, and if no white man entered it he would not allow his people to go beyond these limits to attack the Europeans or their subjects. As regards the missionaries, he fully appreciated their disinterested work, and he would have liked much that his people should " learn to read books and hear about God." But he knew that if he admitted missionaries, somehow or other traders would follow, and after traders w^ould come State officials. Therefore he had determined to refuse access to his lands to any Europeans. Disreo-ardino- this warnino-, aQents of the Kasai and other companies penetrated his country. They were promptly killed. ' Rua, Lua, and Lulua are only variant forms of the tribal name of Luba. CHAPTER XX THE MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CONGO STATE IN December 1885, when the missionaries of all denomina- tions had scarcely ceased acclaiming heartily the creation of the "ConQO Free State as an alternative to the extension of Portuguese influence (the Baptists being amongst the warmest friends of King Leopold's enterprise), Grenfell wrote a note at Stanley Pool complaining that the State was already beginning to infringe the provisions of the Act of Berlin by claiming all the land as State property and refusing sites to a missionary society as well as to the Dutch Trading House. In 1890 he writes in his diary : " Bula Matadi has be- come disliked amongst the people of the Upper Congo, and is called Ipanga Ngunda, which means " Destroys the country." In May 1890 Grenfell first complains of the action of the Congo State officials in regard to ivory, which had been made a Government monopoly, in practice, if not in theory. The representative of the State at Bumba on the northern Congo was said to fire on all canoes carrying ivory westwards, whilst he also prevented canoes going eastwards from Bopoto to purchase ivory. " The State officers having a commission on the ivory they get, they are keen about securing all they can." On June 17 1890 Grenfell's diary records the first hint being given as to the possibility of Concessionnaire companies coming into existence on the Conoo. He had received the information from an American, Colonel Williams, who went up the Congo as far as the Stanley Falls, and told Grenfell on his return that an American agent at Brussels (Mr. Sanford) had been discussing with the Kino- in 1888 the idea of creatingr such companies to deal with the development of the State. When Stanley's expedition was conducting and concluding operations for establishing its " International" stations between ' It is not clear how the official title of " L'Etat Independant dii Congo ' came to be rendered " Congo Free State," this translation not being strictly correct. Stanley — the wish being father to the thought — seems to have originated the common English name, " Congo Free State." The nati\ e name is " Bula Matadi," the nick- name originally given to Stanley. 445 446 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Boma and Stanley Fails (between 1882 and 1884), considerable pains were taken to secure the sovereign rights of, first, the Comite d'Etudes du Haut Congo and, later, the Association Internationale Africaine over both banks of the Lower Congo between Vivi and Stanley Pool ; also along the Niadi-Kwilu River and the north bank of the Congo between Banana and Vivi, Payments were made in goods, usually adequate to the area of unoccupied land thus acquired. It is possible that further treaties or purchases of land were made on the south 232. RUBBER AND IVORY AT THE STATE DEPOT, MOBEKA, UPPER CONGO shore of Stanley Pool and along the east bank of the "Chenal," the narrow part of the Congo between Chumbiri and Stanley Pool, but if so, they were never published. Soon after these arrangements were made (which at most secured for the Congo State strips of land along the Congo course from Banana Point to Stanley Pool on the mouth of the Kwa) the Act of Berlin was signed, and the Congo Indepen- dent State sprang into existence as an African Sovereign Power recognized by all the leading Nations of the world. King Leopold thereupon took it for granted that because Europe had given him authority over nearly a million square miles of land in South-Central Africa that was sufficient in the way of title deeds : any reference to the twenty millions of people and their 100,000 chiefs, kings, or sultans was unnecessary. By a MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 447 decree he attributed to himself as Kinor-Sovereion the owner- ship of all the vacant lands not actually in the possession of natives dwelling on them. This method in the hands of a hicrh-minded, conscientious potentate might at the start have been the best and simplest way of solving- the land question of the Congo. King Leopold might then have proceeded to arrange in course of time a definite land settlement for the natives over whom he was the self-constituted suzerain or sovereign. By the issue of these decrees he was in a position to prevent any reckless or fraudu- lent buying up of native territories by uncontrolled adventurers. As Sovereign of the State by the provisions of the Act of Berlin he was naturally obliged to afford every assistance to missionary societies, without distinction of creed, that they might -obtain the necessary land for their propagandist and educational establishments. Nevertheless, as we see in Grenfell's letters or notes from 1885 to the time of his death, the King-Sovereign restricted the enterprise of the Baptist Missionary Society (and that of other missions) in the most unjustifiable manner. The Baptists, for example, have never been permitted to this day to acquire one square yard of land on which to build a station between the mouth of the Aruwimi and the British frontier of Uganda, and they are under the same disadvantage regarding an extension of their work up the Lualaba- Congo. Along the thousand miles of river frontier between Stanley Falls and the Katanga region they may not obtain an acre of settlement. Similar difficulties had been placed in the way of certain Roman Catholic missions down to a recent date, but these have since been adjusted by an agreement with the Roman Church. Other Protestant missions besides that of the Baptists have sometimes only been able to acquire a site for building and settling down by leaving the territory under the control of the Congo State and going into lands still governed by powerful native chiefs who have, for a time, at any rate, set the State at defiance, but have allowed missionaries to build within their limits. The fact is, not to waste too many words on this sad subject, the foundation of the Congo Free State has evinced a lack of statesmanship, and an incredible ignorance of African conditions on the part of theorists, amiable and unamiable, who have legislated for this million square miles of Central Africa from Brussels. Several of the Conoo Secretaries of State or home administrators have never seen Africa, unless it has been in a winter visit to Alg-iers. Even the Governors-General 448 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO or heads of departments representing the King-Sovereign in Africa have restricted their sojourn a great deal too much to Boma, and are and have been far more ignorant about the real conditions of the people of the vast inner basin of the great river than is many a well-informed English geographer or librarian who has never seen the Congo. Side by side with this heart-breaking incompetence has been (as the pages of this book should show) some of the most splendid pioneering work ever accomplished in Africa by any European nation. As I have ventured to write at an earlier date : "In carrying out such a stupendous work as the dis- covery, mapping, conquest, pacification of, and developing the means of communication over such a vast territory as the nearly one million square miles of the Congo State, no monarch or leader of men was better or more loyally served than King- Leopold has been by the greater number of the Belgians, Scandinavians, or Italians employed in the construction and development of the Congo Free State." The men who performed this work for their King-Sovereign for the most part received pitifully small wages in return for devoting the best years of their lives to a singularly hard existence in a most unhealthy part of tropical Africa. They were ungenerously or unwisely treated as regards their emoluments. A system was brought into force by which these agents of the State received in the first place a living wage — an annual salary of, let us say, ^80 to ^200 (on an average), and in addition a commission^ on the ivory or on other produce that they could purchase for the State. This system, which was at the bottom of so much of the early Congo troubles, urged reck- less, conscienceless men to abuse the power of their guns and soldiers in raiding the country, in imposing all sorts of taxes, fines, and contributions on native villages or native chiefs, in declaringr to be the exclusive property of the State all ivory and, later, all the produce of the forests outside the circle of native habitations. Of course many of the Belgians, being good-hearted men of fine principles, remained poor and contented themselves ' "There can be no doubt that commissions on results of produce collected are practically continued, for it is admitted that Commandants and members of the Staff have a pecuniary interest in coffee and cocoa planted and rubber and ivory brought in. It seems as though poor Von Mueller of Yalemba, incited by the prospects of a con- siderable addition to his t)aitemcnt by energy of administration during the last few montlis, was tempted to exercise such pressure as resulted in his being speared to death on the 6th of September 1899, two days after the Peace had passed up. People had been threatening him for some time ; and giving them their opportunity by going with only six soldiers, he lost his life and two of his soldiers as well. He has been replaced by an Italian." (Grenfell s Diary, November 1899.) I. — 2 G MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 451 with glory. They were looked up to as patriarchs by the native communities, to whom they had been a veritable blessing in that they had put down (at Bolobo, for example, in 1896)^ the horrible conditions of native life to which I have already referred and had brought peace and prosperity. But nien of this kind were not favoured for promotion, except they had achieved some extraordinary geographical exploit or brilliant victory in warfare. They did not add to the revenues of the State. From 1879 to the year 1890 (approximately) King Leopold supported the cost of creating and maintaining the Congo Free State by an annual subvention (it is said) rising by degrees from ^20,000 to ^40,000." Until the Brussels Act came into ' After the State definitely occupied Bolobo in August 1896, Grenfell noticed a great and rapid impro\'ement in the condition of the people, the suppression of burial murders and killing for witchcraft, and less violent punishments for theft. ^ The total amount spent by the King on the Congo, 1879 to 1890, is computed from what is known at between ^400,000 and ^500,000. [Outside subscriptions to the Comit^ d'Etudes du Haut Congo, mainly from England, were reckoned at about 1 6,888, and in 1887 the subscribers were paid off in Congo State bonds to that amount (422,220 francs) to bear 25 per cent interest after 1899.] 1888 a Congo loan to the extent of 150,000,000 francs (^6,000,000) was authorized by decree, but apparently only 94,000,000 francs (/^3, 760,000) was issued between 1888 and 1898. Belgian critics of the Congo State have alleged that only ^1,000,000 of this issue (the deficit occurring principally in 1888) reached the Congo. In 1890 Belgium advanced ^1,000,000 to the Congo State, and in 1895, ^272,176, this total loan of ^1,272, 176 not to be repaid if Belgium e\ entually annexed the State, and only to bear 3 per cent interest if Belgium did not annex. Between 1896 and 1898, ^560,000 was borrowed from or guaranteed by Belgium. In 1901 a loan of ^2,000,000 at 4 per cent was raised for public works and rail- ways, and the State guaranteed further a 4 per cent interest on another j^i,o o,oco for the Upper Congo Great Lakes Railway. In 1904 (apparentl)) another loan of 200,000 was issued or partly issued at 3 per cent, and between igo6 and 1907, ^643,600 was added to the public debt. The total indebtedness — loans sanctioned and issued — of the Congo State may be calculated as high as ^16,887,242 ; but if the lottery loan (^6,000,000) of 1888 is deducted (as this seems in some way to have been cancelled) and if the amount due to Belgium (^1,272,176) is omitted (as it would be effaced on annexation), there results a sum of £g^6ij,o66. Deduct from this the ^5,600,000 of unissued 1905 bonds and the debt bearing interest may certainly be stated at ^4,015,066, bearing interest at the rate of ^166,028 per an/mui. But the issued debt is now officially stated at £4,415,066 : this no doubt includes the ^16,888 owing to the foreign subscribers to the funds of the Comite du Haut Congo, the three millions spent on railway con- struction by the State or pri\ate companies, but leaves out tlie whole of the projected issue of bonds to bearer authorized in 1904. It is charged against King Leopold's administration that out of the debt incurred by 1888, over ^1,000,000 has not been spent on the Congo but in Belgium, and on objects in no way connected with the Congo Free State. This computation is made after excepting some £joo,ooo spent on the Tervueren Congo Museum and on first- class scientific research — an expenditure to which no objection can be raised. Apart from all this, the King is said to have made an average profit yearly, since 1895, out of the produce of the Domaine de la Couronne of ^300,000. Calculate this for only ten years instead of twelve and you have ^3,000,000. It is also stated that the royal share in the profits of the concessionnaire companies since 1895 amounts to about ^2,000,000. Assuming that King LeopolJ had no intention of being a u.ere company 452 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO force in 1892 the State could only raise revenue by internal taxation, by the sale of lands, the issue of certain licences, and the levying- of export duties on produce. The eagerness with which it had put even these limited powers into force drew many a protest from the British, Dutch, and Portuguese merchants of the Lower Congo, as well as from the mission- aries, Catholic as well as Protestant. (One of the French Fathers remarked bitterly in conversation with a British Consul that the only thing in Congo life the State Government did not tax was fever.) After 1892, import duties, limited of course to "a moderate tariff"^ as provided for by the Brussels and Berlin Acts, were imposed on the frontiers of the Congo Free State, and of course added appreciably to the revenue. From 1890 it might be said that the country of Belgium had relieved King Leopold of financial responsibility for the deficits still occurring in Congo administration, by their agree- ments to furnish or to Guarantee loans to the Conoo State. King Leopold therefore after 1890, or at latest 1901, was not called upon to make further sacrifices for the creation of a civilized state of Central Africa. He should therefore— some might say — have regulated the advance of his rule over the promoter, or of turning his sovereignty over Central Africa into a money-making enterprise, pure and simple ; yet agreeing that he had decided to abandon the role of disinterested philanthropist and had become a hard-headed man of business anxious to get his money back and a trifle over; grant him a theoretical "civil list" of ^20,000 a year from 1886 to 1907 : and his account with the Congo Free State would stand thus : — Cr. Money spent out of the Privy Purse : 1879-90 (say) .... 1891-1901 (say) .... Twenty-two years' "civil hst " as Sovereign of the Congo State at ;f 20,000 a year Interest at 4 per cent for (say) seven- teen years on ^'500,000 invested on State creation and mainten- ance (1879-90) and on 400,000 for (say) seven years £ 500,000 400,000 440,000 452,000 792,000 Dr. £ Money received : ( 1 ) Revenue from Crown Domain (say) . . . . . 3,000,000 (2) From concessioHiiaiiccom-^3Mts (say) (3) Balance of loans or surplus of Congo revenues (say) . 2,000,000 1,000,000 ;^6,ooo,ooo The figures given in this note are mostly quoted from the statements made m the Debate on the Congo which took place in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives during February-March 1906, together w ith other and more recent sources of infor- mation, mostly Belgian. The amounts on the creditor side are somewhat over- estimated, those on the debtor side are stated under the totals usually quoted. If this account be approximately correct it will be seen that King Leopold owes the Congo Government and the public opinion of the civilized world— and his own record in history — a sum of over ;^4,ooo,ood. (H. H. J.) 1 Though somehow or other this ranges as high as 30 per cent ad valorem on some articles and is never less than 10 per cent. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 453 Congo basin in proportion to the revenue which could be gathered in without oppression. The argument of his apologists would be that under the circumstances this was a "counsel of per- fection." The six or seven thousand miles of Congo frontier bordering on the vaguely defined Spheres of influence or Protectorates of France, Britain, Germany, and Portugal required patrolling. None of these Powers were particularly scrupulous in the years that followed 1885 in refraining from a desire to filch chunks of territory from King Leopold's domain. In fact, soon after the Act of Berlin was signed the contributory Powers began to regret that they had handed over such a magnificent territory to the control of the Belgian Sovereign. The journeys of Grenfell, Wissmann, and Wolf ; of the De Brazza brothers, and of Vangele ; of Delcom- mune, Thys, Dhanis, Hanolet, Roget, G. and P. Le Marinel, and Hodister, had revealed the rare possi- bilities of this interior basin of the Congo for water transport, its immense stores of ivory and amazing productiveness in rubber. There were also the minerals of Katanga, already ear-marked by such bold British spirits as contemplated an advance from the Zambezi northwards. We will take it for oranted therefore that in desiring to found a maonificent colonial domain for Belgium while at the same time brinCTing- a wholesome civilization into the blood- soaked basin of the Congo, the King of the Belgians felt that he must obtain other resources than loans from his little country on the North Sea. Perhaps, also, he may have legitimately regarded the ex- penditure of his own moneys and the fortune of his dead son in the lioht of an advance, a loan to , , f-^"^. . C ' An elephant s tusk Beloium and to the ConQO to be subsequently [romtheUpperMu. 111 1 bangi, pared down repaid when the country could be froverned at a and pierced to form A ^ o an immense ivory profit. Followinof, as he did so often, in the footsteps of "ported British pioneers of empire, he was particularly struck fo^m. with the ideas and methods of Cecil Rhodes. Undoubtedly, from what was going on in South and South-East Africa, and also from the advice of the American ex-Envoy, H. S. Sanford, he entertained the idea of these Concessionnaire companies, amongst whom a large part of the Congo basin par itofi ■ ory flute. A good deal of the ivory first from the as in this 454 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO should be parcelled out. To repay himself for the sums advanced (we may suppose) and to provide a "civil list" for the King-Sovereign, he had already set aside the Domaine de la Couronne — a territory about seven times the size of Belgium — which was marked out in the very centre of the Congo State. Outside this Domaine de la Couronne, principally to the north of it and of the third degree of S. Latitude, about half the area of the Congo Independent State was transformed into the Domaine Prive, in other words became the exclusive 235. A WOODINC POST FOR STATE STEAMERS, UPPER CONGO property of the State, its land revenues (never, I believe, publicly audited and accounted for) being devoted in theory to the maintenance of the State. Within the vast extent of these State lands were created a number of subsidiarv properties, monopolies which were handed over to private companies, to "trusts." What remained of Congo territories to the south and west of the King's Crown property and outside the State's Domaine Prive was at first left open ; then between 1898 and 1906 was allotted to other conccssionnaii'e companies or trusts (see Ap- pendix). As the Domaine National (formerly the Domaine Prive) restricts commerce to the .State's licensees there is nothing MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 455 left to be exploited by small traders or the general public, except along the banks of the Lower Congo. Now if these proceedings had been carried out by a Cecil Rhodes, a Taubman Goldie, William Mackinnon, George Mackenzie, or by any other capitalist or captain of industry, on to whose shoulders the British Government had shifted, in its customary evasiveness, the burden of empire, they would have been (in theory) what the world might have expected. Men such as these would not ordinarily risk their lives, capital, and energies for philanthropic or even imperial purposes alone. The policy of conferring sovereign rights on their enterprise might prove a questionable one as regards the interests of the general polity ; but if the rest of the world acquiesced in the British flag being hoisted under these conditions, there was an end of the matter : especially if the government of these chartered companies proved on the whole fair and kindly to the natives and regardful of their just rights. But King Leopold stood forward from 1876 to 1885 as the champion of more lofty ideas than those which were quoted by the various great pioneers of British, French, or German enterprise in the foundation of African states. It is true that he was careful at all times to say and write very little himself which would commit him to any definite line of action ; but he allowed, unrebuked and uncontradicted, responsible Belgian statesmen to speak in his name and to give such professions of philanthropy and disinterestedness as astonished the cynical world, even of that simpler-minded age of twenty-five years He was a king, exceedingly rich, grandson of Louis Philippe, cousin of Queen Victoria, the husband of an Austrian Archduchess ; and the ruler of one of the most prosperous, remarkable and distinguished countries of Europe, in the fore- front of art and literature and replete with the glories of his- tory! How could he be actuated by any base or merely money-making motives ? The writer of these lines well re- members how in philanthropic circles in London, a quarter of a century back, any such suggestion about the King of the Belgians would have been regarded as outrageous. So, on conditions very different to those accorded by the world at large to Great Britain, France, or Germany, or by those nations to some company of chartered merchant-adven- turers. King Leopold II was made absolute monarch of the Congo basin. He was practically given a blank cheque, but without the least idea that he would eventually proceed to fill 456 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO up that cheque to an amount of several millions sterling and pay it into his private account. To realize the injustice of the present position — the cruel irony, one might say, of the situation — what should we think of King Edward VII, if, through the blood and bravery of his officers and soldiers, the zeal of his explorers which only death could slacken, the conciliatory propaganda of missionaries of all nationalities, he found himself sovereign-lord over Uganda and East Africa — forthwith recognized as such by other Powers : and that having achieved this position he should pro- ceed to carve out for himself an estate equal to one-seventh of the whole British dominions in East Africa ? Putting into his own pocket (unaccounted for to any one but himself) the whole of the revenues derived from the whole of the natural products of a territory richly endowed by nature, employing Imperial troops to enforce on the natives of this Private Estate of the Crown a degree of taxation entirely beyond their means, a slavery of work for the enrichment of himself far more drastic than the Arab or the native slavery which had been one of the excuses for British intervention ? Of course neither would the British sovereign conceive nor execute such a monstrous piece of chicanery, nor would the British nation permit such an act of aberration. What would the rest of the world say to such an idea ? It may be objected, however, that King Edward does not supply out of his own pocket the funds which have gone to the creation of the British Protectorates over Uganda or any other part of tropical Africa, but that King Leopold did, and that therefore in finding a parallel to his case we must, as it were, discrown him, and rank him with a Cecil Rhodes, a Goldie, or a Mackinnon. But here the parallel does not hold. For Great Britain in legitimizing the enterprises of these mer- chant-adventurers took care (very good care in the case of the Niger and of East and South-Central Africa) to safeguard native rights. The rule under these men has only been in fiction the rule of a chartered company. The British Govern- ment has really considered itself responsible for the actions of these delegates. No official of any importance working under them has been appointed, except on the recommendation or sanction of the British Government. Orders-in-Council, Com- missioners, High Commissioners, Consuls, or Colonial Governors have shaped the laws or criticized the administration; and have actually prepared the way for a time when the direct administra- tion of the British Crown could be brought into force. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 457 Sooner or later there has been a land settlement which has effectually safeguarded the present and future rights of the real natives of the country. Very often large sums of money have been paid to native chiefs (great and small) for the right to assume control over the waste lands or for the purchase of any sites needed by Company or Government. Where the rigrht of the native chief to tax has been abrogfated he has in- stead been granted a handsome revenue, paid directly from the coffers of the British Government or of the Chartered Com- pany. Mos^ of all, this principle has been resolutely enforced: that all revenue collected through these rights and privileges, all taxation imposed on the natives, directly or indirectly, by the con- trolling Power, has been publicly audited and accounted for. No one but a madman could say that the public revenues of Uganda, of Nigeria, of Nyasaland find their way into King Edward's private purse. The Chartered Company of South Africa still remains, but it is pretty well known to a penny how the revenue it collects is expended, and as we all know, such revenue does not yet meet the cost of expenditure and put a profit into the pockets of the Company's shareholders who found the capital to start this enterprise. It has been quite otherwise in the Congo Free State. The territory has been divided up into a State preserve or into areas entrusted to monopolist companies, in some or all of which the King, as Sovereign of the State or as private specu- lator, has a small or a great proportion of the profits. Then there is the Domaine de la Couronne, the profits from which — said to be three millions of pounds — must have gone far to re- pay King Leopold for his first subsidies employed in creating the Congo Free State. As to the remainder, it is still State land, but not the land of a constitutional state, the actions of which are governed by the people's will, and the expenditure of which is publicly audited and controlled. Let us endeavour to expound this problem : without the traditional British cant and hypocrisy. We need not strive to postulate an Utopia in what I must persist in calling "the blood-soaked basin of the Congo." Just for a year or two the world did think that Leopold II was going to set an example, that he was about to perform an act of stupendous philanthropy by introducing a genial and appropriate civilization into Central Africa at his own expense, by creating a native confederation of chiefs in the Congo basin which might end, perhaps conter- minously with the King's life, in bringing" a great Liberia into existence — a Liberia not framed on the impossible models of 458 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO New England, but on the lines of a national, original, indigenous, and reasonable African civilization. But finding that the King was after all no more than the King of the Belgians, desirous of endowing his country with a colonial domain more magnificent than that of Holland, the world need only have shrugged its shoulders if he had followed the example of Great Britain and created or allowed to come into existence these concessionnaire companies which have done so much for the initial development of British Africa and British Oceania, Borneo, and India. I do not go to the lengths of some theorists in Great Britain who would endow the actual natives of the Congo with all the soil of the Congo and all its products. I do not think the territorial rights of all the peoples on the Congo worth such generous consideration as that of a settled European peasantry. Some of them were nomads or semi-nomads. Others were leading a life little superior to that of the wild beasts of the field. Several tribes had just arrived on the scene as ferocious conquerors, with no more legitimate rights than those of the Kinor of the Belgians. But I return to my original argument, that the statesman- ship which attended the inception of the Congo Free State was of a puerile and petty description. If King Leopold had had a really great mind or had followed the advice of a wise counsellor, he would have commenced and patiently carried out a land settlement on the lines of those which have been or are being brought into force in British and French dominions in tropical Africa. A wise discrimination could have been exer- cised between tribe and tribe. To a race of settled agricul- turists almost all the land would have been allotted individually or communally. A race of savages would have been invited to settle down quietly with the promise of an eventual survey and allotment of lands. There would still have remained vast vacant areas, primeval forests, uninhabited savannas, desolate mountains rich in minerals. All this ownerless property might reasonably have been vested in the Crown, in the King-Sovereign, but only to be administered as a public trust for the benefit of the Congo Free State and the inhabitants thereof. It would have been no more improper for the King to have allotted this, that, and the other tract to a concessionnaire company than it is for Britain, France, Portugal, and other nations to do the like (under fair conditions). It is thus that capital is attracted to new lands, if its investment is encouraged by privileges and safeguards. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 459 In the allotment of these lands or forests or mines, how- ever, due attention should have been paid to existing" and reasonable native claims. The royalties and other profits derived by the Sovereign from the bestowal of these concessions should have been put into the pitblic funds, just as they are in the case of Uganda or the possessions of any other civilized nation in Africa. The scope of the companies should have been purely commercial, and the officials and police of the State should have protected the natives and their rights and happi- ness quite as much as the property and employes of the concessionnaires. It seems to me inconceivable that any reasonable human being at the present day could find any defence for the com- mercial policy of King Leopold. Having regard to its results and to the promises and conditions on which the King took up his task, his actions in this respect are indefensible. Judged by his professions and by the terms on which he was allowed to assume the guardianship of the Congo peoples under the Act of Berlin,^ the KinCT-Sovereign has been false to his trust when he allowed such concessionnaire companies as the Societe Anversoise and the A. B.I.R. to exercise uncontrolled dominion over large areas of inhabited country where the European had no previous or inherited rights. The lives and property of thousands of natives, who if they had wronged one another often in the past had never wronged the white man, were placed absolutely at the mercy of unscrupulous Europeans, who were under no responsibility but that of making- the concession pay. Such intervention as the State supplied was nothing more than the lendino- of officers and soldiers to enforce the regulations of the Company. Though not so scandalously bad as in the period between 1896 and 1902 (when within the Concessions area in the north- central and northern parts of the Congo, and most of all within the Royal Domaine, the misery and bloodshed inflicted on the negroes rivalled, perhaps exceeded, that which took place else- where under the Arabs), nevertheless the inherent viciousness of the present system may be exemplified by the following- instance. Amongst other obligations imposed on the natives of the Congo Free State is that of labour clue to the State in lieu of taxation. Now in most districts of the Concjo those who ' The Britisli representative, Sir Edward Malet, in announcing the adhesion of Great Britain specially alluded to the rights of the natives and the British recognition of the State being granted on the assumption that the native rights would be properly respected. 46o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO went to pay their taxes to the State as labourers were drafted far away from their homes to undertake public works, and in many cases never returned. Either they were badly fed and lodged, or through promiscuity with other negroes contracted diseases and received no proper medical care ; or they were kidnapped by unscrupulous chiefs, waylaid and eaten by cannibal bandits, or met with other mishaps. At any rate, the proportion that returned to their homes was small. No doubt there were many cases in which with the negro's insouciance they lost the desire to return (apart from the fact that they may have realized that without money they could not travel several hundred miles on a steamer, and that the attempt to cover that distance on foot would be an almost impossible task) ; and so, when their period of State service was over, preferred to settle 236. LUMPS OF INDIA-RUBBER AS BROUGHT IN BV NATIVES OF UPPER CONGO down where they could find an occupation. Anyhow, in the minds of those that remained in the original home this com- pulsory work for the State was synonymous with the evils of the old slave trade, for the persons selected for this work seldom or never returned to their homes. Then the agents of the conccssionnaire company would come forward, and would say, "We will pay your tax to the State in money, but in return you must pledge yourselves to go into the bush and make so much rubber." The natives eagerly assented. Perhaps the first year they were only required to work in all for about a month at rubber-collecting, on to which all hands were turned — men, women, and children. But the second year the company would ask for more labour : or it might chance that whereas Monsieur A., a trading agent of the company, had been a kind, just man and was contented with the result of a month's work for the rubber-collecting-, Monsieur B. was greedy for a larger commission and wished to exhibit a larger MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 461 output/ He might therefore insist on the people working in all six months, eight months, at the rubber business. So this tax on their time from being quite a reasonable one (in return for protection and other conveniences of life) grew, in the fierce struggle for wealth on the part of these companies and the few potentates behind them, into an almost ceaseless toil for the benefit of the white man ; whilst in their mad desire to save themselves from transportation or the other (perhaps exaggerated) horrors they associated with direct service of the State, the people have been destroying the forest, destroying the forest, destroying the forest to get the rubber demanded ot them. Their fields remain untitled, and the picture is one too painful to dwell on." Of course all this time bolder spirits were leaving the lands directly ruled by these concessionnaire com- panies and flocking to the standard of Kalambo, the King of the Bena-Lulua, or to the great Sultans or Arabs of the north and north-east. To Zappo-Zap they do not go, since they would be either killed for the amusement of himself and his bloodthirsty followers or sold as slaves. This is the picture drawn by Father Vermeersch, the Baptist missionaries (British and American), the Congo Balolo Mission, by Swedish missionaries, and by members of the American Presbyterian Mission. It is a state of things which has been confirmed by Consular officials of Great Britain and the United States. It is indeed an ironical contrast to the flowery declara- tions amid which the Congo State was born into the comity of nations. As a general rule, the negro is lazy and has made a profitless use of the magnificent continent in which he has been evolved. But when unspoilt, he is willing and quick to learn, humble, faithful, and imitative ; an apt pupil, separated from the ^ Of late the salaries of the agents of one very large concessionnaire company have been reduced to between forty and sixty pounds a year ! The rest of the agents' emoluments must be earned as commission. Consult for particulars the Almanack du Congo, igo4 : published at Louvain by the Pretres du Cosur de Jesus. ^ Vice-Consul G. B. Michell writes on December 26th 1906, in a despatch to the British Government (dealing with the banks of the northern Congo): — " Here, as elsewhere, the natives appeared to me to be so heavily taxed as to be depressed, and to regard themselves as practically enslaved by ' Bula Matadi.' The incessant call for rubber, food, and labour leaves them no respite nor peace of mind. " On the whole, the impression I received throughout my journey was that of a crisis. I do not mean a sense of danger, but a general expectation of some change. In every post the State agents said that they could not get the natives to yield their proper quota of taxation, and there seems to be a nearly universal tendency just now to think that the collecting of rubber is to be stopped. There is a strong dislike to this particular form of imposition. Unless they were compelled, either physically or morally, I am convinced that not an ounce would be made in the country. If the compulsion were removed there would be universal rejoicing." 462 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO influence of the white man by no superstition, prejudice, pride of caste, or religious fanaticism. What — one asks oneself over and over again — what might not Leopold II of Belgium have done with races like the Baluba, the Bena-Lulua, the Bakuba, Bagenya, Bangala if he had used his opportunities aright, if he had appliedj the results of the conquests of his officers — legiti- mate conquests over Arabs and cannibals — not to rack-renting the country for rubber, or allowing others to do so for the rapid enrich- ment of Europeans who had never seen the Congo, but to the patriarchial en- lightenment, the gradual civilization of some of the finest negro races — men- tally as well as physically — exist- ing in Africa at the present day ? For the maintenance of his government he need have created only such monopo- lies or imposed such taxation as was sufficient to raise funds for public works and 237. ix.jAAiiJi, A riKKMAN ON B.M.s.s. " ( .ooDwi LI. rtiaintenancc of A typical Bangala type. pubKc SeCUrltV. Nobody expected him to exhaust his private fortune or that of his children for pure philanthropy ; but on the other hand it certainly never entered the minds of the statesmen who pledged their respec- tive countries to the creation and recognition of the Congo Free State that the absolutely despotic power placed in the hands of this one man would be turned to such base purposes as are now blazoned over the whole Congo basin. Perhaps the bitterest part of the whole thing is that side by side with this misuse of the King's power and privileges one MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 463 connotes a heroism, a cheerful endurance of privation and disease, an honest liking for these feckless savages under their control on the part of so many Belgian officials, civil and military, men often serving the State for a pittance that would scarcely attract the most junior officer in the British Colonial Service. And all this fine work on the part of Belgians — or of British,^ Scandinavians, Italians, and other Europeans— from 1880 to 1907 : instead of resulting in a monument to the white 238. STATE LANDING-STAGE AT BOMWANGA, UPPER CONGO, Wl l H STATE SOLDIERS DRAWN UP IN RANK AS GUARD OK HONOUR man's courage, nobility of purpose, shrewd common sense, and victory over the Devil of reactionary Nature — the real Devil that manifests himself in microbe and insect, in disease-germ, thunderstorm, flood, drought, sunstroke, wild beast, or perverse human — has left us after twenty-seven years' work a Congo basin known to its innermost recesses, well governed on its frontiers, but with its centre devastated by disease and famine, ' It must not be forgotten — as some additional defence of our right to criticize — that the Congo basin was mainly discovered by Britons, and that during the first five years which went to the creation of the Congo Free State 80 Englishmen (as against 81 Belgians) served King Leopold out of a total of 263 Europeans employed under Stanley. 464 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO depopulated by punitory expeditions, partially disforested, and absolutely closed to the commerce of the world in general. As to the atrocities and other misdeeds with which the Belgians^ were charged : the atrocities were the necessary con- sequence of the trading and taxation policy adopted by the King-Sovereign. To carry out this policy he recruited a large army from among the more warlike negro tribes of northern and eastern Conoroland. Now no one is or has been so cruel to the negro as the negro. Put a negro into a uniform, drill him, give him lethal weapons, a sufficient salary, food, and the means 239. NATIVE SOLDIER GUARDING WOMEN HOslAGLb IN CHAINS of maintainino- a wife, etc., and he will have to be very badlv used before he turns against the European who has initiated him into this glorious life of power and authority. Of all the races of mankind perhaps the negro is the most inherently martial. He worships power in all its manifestations. It may be a very long time before the spread of ideas unites large bodies of negroes against the Europeans as a race, that is to say in Africa.- ^ Very often the agents of the coficessionttaire companies or the employes of the Domaine de la Couronne were not Belgians. - Though it must be admitted that the State policy in parts of the Congo basin has come very near to being the transcendent element which is to fuse all internecine strife among negro tribes and unite them with a universal raging hatred against the Europeans. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 465 These native soldiers were employed as " sentries " (posies) to police subdued districts and to superintend the collection of commercial products assessed as taxation values, or to collect labour in lieu of taxes. These men, accustomed, before ever a Belgian or Arab set foot on the Congo basin, to torture and mutilate men, women, and children, and to ravish women, continued these practices as the agents of a far-off white Sove- reign who had undertaken to be the supreme law-giver and protector of thirty millions^ of unwitting black men. They were equally the agents of the King whether they served directly under his commissioned officers or under the concession- naire companies he had chartered. King Leopold must bear the stigma of their misdeeds.^ It is not my intention in this book to repeat the work already carried out so effectively by Mr. H. R. Fox- Bourne, Mr. E. D. Morel, by British Consular officials, by King Leopold's own Commission of Inquiry, by the evidence of members of the Congo Balolo Mission, the Baptist Missionary ^ Now perhaps only twenty. - In my desire to be perfectly fair to the Belgian administration, I should like to point out that — especially of late — the system of establishing" soldiers as ''sentries" in village communities to superintend the collection of taxes, enforce the obligations of military service, or to maintain law and order generally, by no means resulted always in "atrocities," misuse of power, or other evils. On the contrary, recent evidence especially tends to show that in some districts the system has been highly beneficial. Here is a heartening extract from the experiences of Mr. H. Sutton-Smith, one of the Baptist missionaries on the Lualaba section of the Congo abo\e Stanley Falls :— "Several of the soldiers stationed at different villages are eager to learn, and to most of them I ga\ e a primer m the hope that they will find some one to teach them. On Thursday, August 9th, I called at the village of Wayika, near Lokandu (Riba Riba). I gave the soldier a primer and taught him the vowel signs, also a copy-book, and showed him how to write them. The next morning I had to pass on. " During the day, on nearing Lokandu, I walked through the c|uarters of a number of retired soldiers, mostly young men who had served fi\e or se\en years. There are some 150 houses on the north side of Lokandu occupied by them. They have settled down and are gathering families around them. One and another turned from his occupation to salute me as I passed. How their faces beamed when I noticed their children. They followed me along to the beach where the canoe was waiting, and asked me when they were going to get a teacher. They said, 'We had no chance when we were soldiers to learn to read, but we would like our children to learn.' They are fine, intelligent-looking fellows, and doubtless many of them would learn to read themselves. "I returned to Wayika on Wednesday, .August 15th. I found that the soldier knew his vowels and could write them well. He learnt the first five consonants in a lesson, and I gave him a writing exercise on them. The next morning, as I snatched a hurried breakfast, soon after 6 a.m., he came to me and showed me that he knew the second page of consonants as well. We had heard him repeating them over and over to himself the night before, after learning them in the Icitchen from one of the boys. "Three young fellows from the town asked for primers, and when I asked who would teach them, they replied 'The soldier.' They pressed me to tell them when we would come to teach them these things day by day, and I could give them no reply except to say that our work took all our time at Yakusu." I. — 2 H 466 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Society, and the American Presbyterian and Baptist Missions, besides several representatives of the French and Belgian Roman Catholic Missions in the Conoco basin.^ I could add to 1 • • . the testmionies and accusations of these persons, the privately printed evidence of the Rev. J. H. Weeks [besides his pub- lished account of the Yanjali massacre of 1 17 men, women, and children in 1903], and a good many pages of Grenfell's own writing, accusing sentries and, worse still, the white agents of concessionnaire companies (some of them Belgian officers) of atrocious cruelties towards natives in connection with the demands first for ivory and then for rubber. But I refrain from giving more than two of Grenfell's instances, from a series ex- tending over a period from 1894 to 1904." If those who are ' See the well-known book of Father A. \'ermeersch, S.J., La Question Congolaise. Charles Balms, Rue Terra Neuve, Brussels. ^ Rubber Atrocities. — 5th of February 1899. Mrs. M. Clark, of Ikoko, tells me that within a few minutes of their station four people were killed by the soldiers on one occasion in December last, amongst them a child of two years or so, the cause being that the Ikoko people would not send the quota of workers. Though this quota had been reduced by more than one half during the previous few months (namely, from eighty to thirty for certain days of each month), the men did not like to work, and so sent their wives. But the soldiers took the wives, and the men did not like that, though somewhat less than working themselves. The soldiers are very energetic in getting the workers, and are practically uncontrolled. And the worst of it is that in some cases at least the officers are afraid to punish their soldiers for these things. ' If you kill So-and-So for having killed Washenzi, we will shoot you' is reported as the open threat in one case where it is known that murder went unpunished beyond a day or two in the chain. This shooting is particularly sad, a large proportion of the killed being women and children. One incident in this Ikoko episode was most affect- ing. Mrs. Clark arriving on the scene saw the feet of a child just showing beneath a canoe, and had the body brought out. The poor mother hugged the wet body in silence to her breast, but till she was well away from the soldiers and the place gave no vent to her grief As soon as she got within sight of her hut she gave one great shriek and shed floods of tears. The cruelties of these soldiers I feel sure are very, very terrible in the places beyond the range of the missionaries' ken, and if within our narrow range so much comes to view, what must take place in the wide expanse from which we are shut out. "While we were at Bopoto a week ago a Lisala man was reported as having wounded a soldier, whereupon permission was given to the soldiers to thrash the people. So they started off with sticks and stones and emptied the village, some taking to flight in the bush, others in the river. These latter were kept from landing by the soldiers keeping up a storm of stones till the swimmers had drifted a long way from the \ illage. -Mr. Forfeitt took several on board his boat. One poor old woman, nearly blind, fought frantically as she was being pulled on board, thinking that enemies had hold of her instead of friends." A later e.xtract in 1899 : — " On passing Iringi this voyage I took a copy of Lindeman's protest to the Governor concerning Bomu Njoko (the native name of an A.B.I.R. agent) and the A.B.I.R. having killed some thirty people, of whom more than twenty were women and children, and this within the Congo watershed and out of Lopori range. Also a copy of a protest of a similar character where soldiers (and a white man this time) had killed some twenty, with guns and cartridges furnished by a white man. . . . Senga of Yakusu went with a complaint to Commandant Malfeyt. Mujoko had him seized and put in the chain, and kept him therefor a week, and sent him back without having given him a chance of seeing the Commandant. Mujoko wants a hundred shoka (iron spear-heads used as cash), is refused . . . Two or three people tied up, and redeemed by one hundred shokas." [Grenfell then goes on to relate that Baron MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 467 honestly anxious to know where the truth lies are not convinced by all the evidence above cited (not forgetting the reports of the British Consular officials from 1904 to 1907, and of the King's own Com- mission of Inquiry, also the terrible and unanswered accusations of Bel- gian representa- tives in the Belgian Parliament), they would not be ad- ditionally con- vinced by Gren- fell's evidence or by that of members of the Baptist Mission resident on the northern Congo, whose complaints are of as late a date as 1907-8. Grenfell was so firm a believer down to 1902 in the philanthropic intentions of King- Leopold, that until that period he was very loth to join in open denunciation of the Congo Free State ; but he re- cords several stormy interviews with the Governor- General of the Congo between 1903 and 1906, who upbraided him in harsh terms for his soberly worded protests. He was, it is true, made by King Leopold the Secretary of a committee of Dhanis, the great victor over the Arabs, is much hked by the people, and that they are preparing to get up a great dance in his honour when he returns from his war against the Arabs. Grenfell asks why. "Because Mujoko will have to go, he is packing up already."] This Bomu Njoko or Mujoko seems to have become an intolerable tyrant and pirate, stopping letters and destroying them. 240. THE "CHICOTE" OR WHIP MADE OF TWISTED HIPPO HIDE WHICH FIGURES SO MUCH IN CONGO HISTORY It is not unlike the kurbash of the Sudan, but this particular form of whip and its name — chicote — was invented by the Portuguese slave-traders of the eighteenth century. 468 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO missionaries to watch over and protect native interests ; but as the Belgian geographer, A. J. Wauters, and Grenfell himself have both pointed out, this committee was a farce. British explorers who have not penetrated the large area which is comprised in central Congoland under the name of the Domaine de la Couronne, or who have not penetrated into the lands once occupied by the Societe Anversoise, the A.B.I.R. Company, or the Kasai Company — and no British explorer [with the exception of Lord ^lountmorres and the missionaries and consuls] has ever been into these regions — have come back speaking in terms of the highest praise of the Belgian treatment of the natires, and of the civiliza- tion introduced and maintained by the Congo State. Their opinions may be — like my own have been in times past — un- consciously biassed by the generous hospitality which every Beloian shows the stranoer who comes to his orates. But still o o o in the main they wrote or spoke the truth, and it was naturally a puzzle to impartial onlookers to reconcile the stories of the missionaries and of certain Belgian politicians with the ac- counts given by Colonel Harrison, Major Powell Cotton, Mr. Savage Landor, and Captain Boyd Alexander. A little attention to Congo geography will clear away this discrepancy in a moment. Not one of these travellers (in- cluding the present writer) has ever visited the regions where the misdeeds of the native and European agents of the Companies or Domains took place. They have skirted the Mubangi territories or those of the Ituri and Semliki, or possibly in one or other case have descended the main Congo on a steamer, scarcely ever stopping for any time at a native village. They were, no doubt, quite right (as I was in 1900) in saying that they could see nothing but good in the work of the Belgians on the Congo. Equally true neverthe- less is the evidence of the woes inflicted by the present regime, which has been collected and sifted by Morel, by Vandervelde, Daens, Lorand, Bertrand, Felicien Cattier, Father A. \^er- meersch, and S. Lefranc, or obtained by the British Consular officials Pickersgill, Casement, Nightingale, Michell, and Arm- strong, by Lord Mountmorres, and by fifty-two missionaries, including English, Americans, Canadians, Germans, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. There should also be added the testimony of Italian officers or officials who have served the Congo Free State and have protested against its procedure.^ ' Any reader of this book who is aware of the insidious influence of British Imperiahsm, and dreads to condemn any African Government from the denuncia- MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 471 A Pfood deal has been alleoed aoainst the Cono-o State on the score of Slavery. Some of the critics have been ani- mated by counsels of perfection. It was expected during the first ten \ ears of the State's existence — let us say from 1880 to 1890 — that its officers would almost immediately produce out of chaos, utter disorder, and a condition of internecine war amongst twenty or thirty millions of savages a state of perfect peace, free from any blemish, and, above all, innocent of the selling and buying of human beings. This with the means at the conmiand of the organization was an obvious impossibility. It was all very well for the State official or the missionary to say, " I won't encourage slavery by redeeming a fugitive or a person sentenced to death for witchcraft." But the humane temptation to do so was sometimes irresistible. So in a sense slaves were bouoht, and being grateful to their purchasers remained as servants. Gradually the system grew on even the best of the State officers. They frequently paid sums in trade goods to Arabs and Arabized native chiefs, in return for which they received numbers of war captives, who became the soldiers, hibourers, porters, and servants of the State. I cannot anywhere find a record of these men being- resold aoain ; but on the other hand there is plenty of evidence to show that with most of the officers of the State the persons thus purchased after serving a reasonable time (perhaps with a small wage) were allowed to settle down in some agricultural colony and practi- cally regained their liberty of action. These are the people so often referred to in the records of ten and twenty years ago as libdr(!s. But a system which has led to a great deal of harm was due to a law or decree passed in regard to "orphans." Apparently the officials of the State were authorized by this law to lay hold of any children without visible father or mother and hand them over to the care of Belgian religious missions. Here they were to be brought up and educated by the fathers or sisters. As a matter of fact this often led to the original purpose of these Christian missions being alto- gether abused and their resources strained. And one can easily tions of his fellow-countrymen alone, might well confine himself to judging of the maltreatment of the natives under the Leopoldian regime by the exposures of this maltreatment published in Belgium. He may even narrow down his attention to the verbatim report of the Five Days' Debate on Congo matters in the Belgian House of Representatives during February and March 1906, and the series of letters (1908) in the Belgian paper Le Patriate from the pen of a magistrate, Mons. S. Lefranc, until recently a Judge of the First Instance on the Congo. 472 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO conceive mission stations that submitted to the control or patronage of the Congo State being turned ev^entually into mere labour-rearing estabHshments, vast factories of servile labour. It has been frequently pointed out (by Belgians quite as much as by other Europeans) that in most native communities if a child loses its father and mother it is sufficiently looked after by its uncles and aunts. Grenfell is particularly sarcastic in some of his entries resfardinor the utterances of a certain Congo Secretary of State, who described the greater part of 242. CIRI. PUPILS AT THE BAPTIST MISSION, VAKUSU, NORTHERN CONGO the Congo natives as "beyond the pale of the family idea." He was rightly sarcastic, because no race or tribe yet met with on the Congo — not even the Pygmies — can be thus described. Family ties are very strong amongst negroes. Aunts and uncles are not infrequently called by the same term as mother and father. With most of these negro peoples there is in addition the o-odfather and oodmother institution : that is to say, soon after birth a man or woman (according to the sex of the child) is chosen as an almost exact equivalent to the god- father and godmother of Christian lands — a kindly guardian who will give an eye to the child's upbringing and training, especially in the case of the death of its parents. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 473 This passion for snatching" orphans and turning them into little serfs has done a great deal to break up family life in the regions of the State which are under control. Another such idea, which though well intentioned was fan- tastic and unworkable, emanated apparently from Brussels. It went forth some twenty years ago that a great deal of care was to be taken of married women amongst the natives : they were not to be allowed to work. All this time the State went on founding its agricultural colonies, partly with a view to raising a food supply, and partly to make use of the libdr^s, who were slaves forcibly released or else ransomed from Arab raiders or native chiefs, or prisoners of war. In these colonies it was arbitrarily determined that there should be unmarried women on one side (as it were) and men living in a state of celibacy on the other. The young women being required to work could not be allowed to marry, or by the law of the State they must then become useless members of the community. Naturally this extraordinary idea led to the grossest immorality. Either the men, forced to live in a community by themselves without womenkind, fell into practices attributed to the Chinese on the Rand, or — the negro being nearly always absolutely averse to such tendencies — there was an illicit intercourse between the men workers and the women workers which led to a very dis- gusting state of affairs that it is not necessary to allude to further, since after strong representations from Grenfell and other missionaries — Catholic and Protestant alike — the law about married women not beings allowed to work, and conse- quently State workers not being allowed to marry, fell into desuetude. By the time this book is published it is possible that Belgium will have come to terms with the Kino--Sovereio-n over the Congo Free State, and that these terms, of necessity, will be such as cannot be objected to by the Powers who are signatories of the Act of Berlin. If this has been the outcome of the agitation against the Leopoldian regime started in England, we shall all of us be only too happy to let bygones be bygones, and as the dead cannot be called back to life, dwell no more than we can help on the mistakes which the Government of the Independent Congo State has made. As regards its errors of judgment between 1880 and 1890, many of them were committed with the best intentions, though they arose from the foolish attempt to govern a vast dominion in Africa more or less directly from Brussels, and to do it through 474 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO persons quite unacquainted with Africa. As regards the King's policy between 1892 and the present day, I doubt if the Muse of History when she can take a calm survey of these proceed- ings a hundred years hence will be able to acquit him of blame. He may have been deceived by his ministers and representa- tives down to 1902. Since then one can only imagine that he has deliberately shut eyes and ears to the truth. But if Beloium has awaked to a sense of righteousness and has compelled King Leopold to give up the charge that he has abused, has stepped into the breach herself as a proud 243. MATADI, FROM THE BAPTIST MISSION STATION', NEW UNDERHILL nation resolved to have no stain on her honour, even if to maintain that honour she must make pecuniary sacrifices; then let us try to remember not the misdeeds and mistakes of the Conofo State, but such excellent work as we know has been done in railway construction, in agricultural developments, in the establishment of law and order over the western, northern, and eastern regions, and last but not least, in the notable con- tributions that have been made to our scientific knowledge of Central Africa. To some extent the drama of Africa has been worked out in the object-lesson of the Congo Free State. Here we have seen the last phase of that type of " colonies " which MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 475 began with the Spanish conquest of America, and was not absent from the middle - eighteenth - century proceedings of the British in India or from Bonaparte's conquest of Egypt. There have been distinct attempts on the part of British pioneers to imitate this proceckire towards the natives in East and South-Central Africa and elsewhere. France has allowed concessionnaire companies to do things quite as bad as those attributed to the Leopoldian regime in the hinterland of the French Congo and Gaboon. Charges of the same kind have been levelled against the Portuguese in the far interior of Angola, and it was actions of this type that provoked the first rising against the Germans in East Africa in 1888 and 1889. Our American cousins were at one time accused of deeds not altogether dissimilar in the Philippines, and the Dutch likewise in Celebes and Sumatra. King Leopold has allowed the wrong-doing to be com- mitted over such a considerable extent of country and on so large a scale as to attract perhaps more public attention than has been bestowed by the Press on other forms of colonial misgovernment under other flags. Let this one object-lesson suffice for all time for the Caucasian. The backward races we set out to educate need for a greater or less number of years to come under our supervision and control, or — as has often happened in times past — they will simply exterminate one another : at any rate lead a life which is uselessly savage, is short, and more often unhappy than otherwise. But we are there to educate and not to exploit. Our wrong-doing not only enrages the savage [if it does not exterminate him], but it degrades the morale of the Caucasian. Spain has been crippled for two centuries at least as a punishment for her misdeeds in Central America. Thanks to Exeter Hall and the Exeter Hall spirit. Great Britain has strayed less fre- quently from the right path. For Belgium I believe a great administrative career is opening in Africa if she will only study the past colonial history of Spain, France, Britain, Ger- many, and Portugal, and that of the International Independent State of the Congo, and note what she should avoid, what she may imitate, and above all what good measures she may originate on her own account. 476 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO APPENDIX I CONCESSIONNAIRE COMPANIES IX THE BASIN OF THE CONGO There are apparently five kindred companies branching out from the original Anglo-Belgian Indiarubber Company. These are : (i) the Abh- (not yet altogether incorporated in the Domaine National), whose territory lies to the south of the northern bend of the Congo in the basin of the Maringa and Lopori affluents of the Lulongo ; (2) the Societe Coinincrcialc Anversoise (now reincorporated in the State domain) along the northern bank of the Congo, and thence north to the Mubangi water- shed, practically in the basin of the River Mongala ; (3) the Coniptoir Commercial Congolais, in the valley of the Wamba, an affluent of the Kwango ; (4) the Compagnie du Kasai, extending over nearly the whole of the Congolese basin of the Kasai and its affluents (Sankuru, Lulua, etc.); (5) the Societe des Chcmins de fe}- des Grands Lacs, which has been granted a belt of country extending from the right bank of the Lualaba-Congo in the region of the Stanley Falls, eastwards to the Semliki River and the vicinity of Lake Albert. Of (4) and (5) the Congo State, i.e. the King -Sovereign, holds half the capital. (6) The Union Minicre du Haut Katanga. This includes all the Katanga country bordering on Rhodesia, and as far north as the con- fluence of the Lufira with the Lualaba. (7) The American Cottgo Company, to which has been ceded the territories along the left or east bank of the Congo between Stanley Pool and opposite the mouth of the Alima, and also nearly as far inland as the Kwango. (8) Then there is the Societe Internationale Forestiere et Miniere, whose somewhat vague concession extends from north-west to south- east along the valley of the Busira and Chuapa across the Lomami and Lualaba to Tanganyika. (9) The Compagnie du Katanga is a large concession, between the upper Lualaba and Lufira rivers on the south and the fifth degree of S. Latitude on the north, bordered on the east by Tanganyika and on the west by the basin of the Kasai. (10) There is the Compagtiie du Lomami, to which has been con- ceded the long stretch of the Lomami Valley from its junction with the Kwango up-stream to the third degree of S. Latitude. This or a similar Company has a small additional concession on the upper Busira River. (11) A large mineral concession has been ceded to the Raihvay Company of the Lower Congo in the region of the Kasai and of Lake Leopold and the Lukenye River. 478 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO Finally, there is (12) the Domaine or Fojtdation de la Couronne, which is practically the private estate of the King of the Belgians in Congoland. This is a considerable tract, bounded somewhat vaguely on the west, north, and east by the basin of the main Congo, the Equator, and the basin of the Lomami, and on the south by the line of water-parting between the basin of the Kasai-Sankuru and that of the Mfini and Lukenye. Companies 9, 10, and 12 are proprietary. Companies i to 8 and No. 12 hold special concessions for rubber, ivory, or minerals. The remainder of Congo territory — about one-half — is described as Domaine National, or (by King Leopold) as Doiiiaijie de VEtat. As regards the notorious Abir Company, although it has been repeatedly stated that it has been reabsorbed in the Congo State, it still (according to British Consular officials appears to retain separate administrative functions. The following notes on the Societe Anvcrsoise and Major Lothaire's connection with this Concessionnaire Company have been forwarded to me by a well-known Congo explorer : — "The Societe Anversoise dn Commerce du Congo was in the beginning administered by agents of the State. There was then not the slightest trouble with the natives. Of course the financial result was less favourable than later, but this was due to the fact that the Lower Congo railway was not finished, and the transport of the goods to and from the coast was very expensive. Later on the Company began to administer its territory by its own agents, and as cheapness of labour was its chief aim, all people who had been refused by other companies, or who had been dismissed by them for bad behaviour, found employment in the S.A.C.C. As a rule twelve to fifteen hundred francs (^48 to ;^"6o) was the salary paid, and it can be well imagined that people who went to the Congo for such a slight compensation were not worth more. They had, of course, to make their profit out of commissions. The really bad period began when Lothaire was made Director-General. Each factory in the Congo had permission to keep for its own defence twenty-five Albini rifles ; and Lothaire established a great number of so-called factories, for each of which he imported the maximum number of rifles permitted. He divided the country into different provinces, and made the most important chief of each suzerain over the others and trusted him with the gathering of the rubber. To help him in this work a large number of rifles, probably above a thousand, were given to him to help in the collecting of rubber ; and it may be imagined, as ammunition was offered too freely to the chiefs, what use was made of their rifles. When later some of these chiefs, dissatisfied by the treatment they received at the hands of the Company, turned against it, they were so well armed and so well provided with ammunition that it was impossible to bring them to submission. The greater part of the concession of the S.A.C.C. was situated in the country inhabited by the Buja, a warhke forest tribe which is certainly the boldest in the whole Congo basin. The Buja hunt the elephant with spears and arrows, and when attacked by State forces it would occur that in the middle of the most violent firing, and though scores of them were shot, they walked up to the troops and tore the rifles out of their hands. When Lothaire, after having done all this mischief, returned to Europe, the Company was obliged to ask the State to come and help to put down the different ' Africa No. i {April igoy). Correspondence respeciitig the Independent Utate of the Congo. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 479 rebellious tribes and to obtain the restitution of their rifles. This was easier asked than done, for whenever the State troops came in force, they found nobody to fight, as it is easy for the inhabitants of the forest to hide and avoid them ; it was only small parties that were attacked and destroyed. Many officials have lost their lives in this region. "The proceedings of Major Lothaire having been found out, it was stated that if he ever again put his foot on Congolese soil he would be arrested. Now whatever Lothaire may be, he certainly is a dare-devil, and when one day in Belgium some of his comrades mentioned to him that it would be impossible for him to return to the Congo, and challenged him to do so, he made a bet that he would do it, and, in fact, embarked a few weeks later for Boma. It 244. THK LUM .11 . I A'l K I'OVI ol' Dl'MIiA, MiKllll.KN LOM.U, AT THE EDGE OF THE BUJA TERRITORY may be imagined what astonishment his appearance created there, and the Procurator-General, M. Waleffe, instantly applied to the Governor-General for permission to arrest him. . . . When Lothaire had been arrested, he asked for bail, engaging his word of honour ' as an officer ' to appear whenever required. Under great pressure the Procurator-General granted this, and Lothaire took the first opportunity to leave the Congo on a steamer proceeding to St. Paul de Loanda, from whence he returned to Europe on a Portuguese steamer. \Vhen asked whether he did not attach more value to his word of honour, he is said to have replied that he only gave his word of honour as an officer, and that at that time he had left the army for several years. " Now the administration of the Company has been taken over by the State, but it will be years before the old order can be restored." The same correspondent, not an Englishman, comments on the contradictory traits of Lothaire's nature. His remarks find some 48o GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO corroboration in Grenfell's journals. According to my correspondent, Lothaire was the kindest comrade, tenderest nurse of brother officers : brave to recklessness, ready to risk his life for others again and again, a man who would devote all his spare time to those who were sick or wounded, yet who could be pitiless and cruel towards the natives. He was, of course, denounced by every British newspaper of importance, not only for his putting Stokes to death, but for his ruthless administra- tion of the S.A.C.C. territory in northern Congoland. Yet he was so great an admirer of England, that during the Boer War he challenged a brother officer in a Brussels cafe to fight him in a duel or withdraw the offensive remarks he had made about England and Englishmen. APPENDIX II EXTRACTS FROM A PRIVATE LETTER WRITTEN BY GRENFELL, DECEMBER 29TH 1902 " I PROMISED to write to you in regard to Congo affairs. ... I have been greatly perplexed, as you can well imagine, at the disparity in so many cases between the results of the Congo State administration and the high and bene- ficent purposes of the Central Authority. For, while I thank God for the introduction of law and order and for the protection of life and property over wide areas where in early days I was daily in contact with a state of law- lessness and misery that makes my old diaries blood curdling and horrible, yet I cannot help being grieved at the hardships endured by the people in dis- tricts removed from the surveillance of the authorities. I wish most fervently for serious reform. The operations of which I complain are found in the collec- tion of taxes in kind and in the form of labour. If the taxes bore equally all round, and if labour was equally shared by all the people, the hardship would scarcely be felt. But the Administration is so scattered that it is only effective in detail at places, and at those places where a white man backed by twenty or thirty soldiers occupies a post to himself fifty or a hundred miles from any other white man, and has to garrison five thousand square miles of territory, the pressure is often localized to a severe if not to a dangerous degree. An official does not do the collecting himself. His soldiers do it, and their aim is to get the levies in quickly rather than to distribute them fairly. It was the difficulty of controlling the collection of the taxes in the Equatorial Sudan that so vexed poor Gordon's righteous soul. It is the same that Lugard complains of on the Niger, and it is the same difficulty which I have to record on the Congo. Here, a staff of some fifteen hundred Europeans has to fill the various branches of the Administration, including railway and steamboat services, and control some seven thousand native troops. The fifteen hundred must do everything that has to be done in a territory nearly a third the size of Europe. This involves a lot of rough-and-ready work, much slackness at many points, and stress at not a few. " If the Code Congolais could only be universally applied, and a regulation per capita tax enforced, even though it involved as much as a month's rubber collecting or other strenuous effort, the country would soon emerge into an ideal condition compared with the present, and the discontent that is very evident in places would be very largely dissipated, though it is not to be expected, human MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 481 nature being what it is, that the people would take pleasure in tax-paying. It is the i/icessant and varying requirements from the people oti the part of the represen- tatives of the Government that constitute in my opinion a grave danger for the future of the State. I could enforce the opinion by detailed incidents, but as these have come to my notice while I have been the guest of Government officials at various points, I cannot very well do so. Please do not for a moment think I am referring to atrocities or anything of the kind. I have just returned from a journey of some four hundred miles along the Aruwimi valley, and I have not seen or so much as heard of anything like corporal punishment being inflicted, though here and there I saw persons in chains, and here and there I saw soldiers striking natives (I must confess the provocation was very great). Another case — the reported conduct of a slave-trade — I deemed called for action, and in calling attention to the case it was dealt with. When I tell you that over a length of some two hundred miles of the Aruwimi valley I found the administration in the hands of an officer who with a staff of five Europeans and one hundred soldiers manned four stations, it needs no particular discernment to discover that neither the collection of taxes nor the execution of justice could be enforced against the will of the people. In fact it was evident that those who had made up their minds not to pay did not do so, and this to the disadvantage of the " willing horse." But non-compliance in the matter of tax-paying and non-submission to the law are catching complaints, and it is in these I see dangers ahead of a most serious kind. In my estimate, the State is not represented strongly enough amongst these sturdy folk, who have acquired no small amount of resourcefulness and self-reliance in resisting the Sudanese from the north and the Arabs from the south-east. The State was welcomed as a deliverer, and was popular everywhere till the need for tax- collecting arose. Of course it is impossible for the State to be represented more efficiently except at increased expense and 7nore taxes. The State, I believe, favours a policy of placing but small power at the disposal of its representatives in its various outposts, having realized the tendency to misuse such power. This tendency would be less with men of higher grade than among the foreign legion which the Belgians are enlisting for their work on the Congo. There is year by year a notable increase in the number of Italians in the State service, and also a notable outflow of experienced Belgians to the better paid Commercial Service, a matter of very grave import for the future. "The Congo State has been handicapped from the beginning by having had so largely to pay its own way, and now that the King has withdrawn his ;^4o,ooo per annum and Belgium no longer furnishes the subsidy of ^80,000, the financial pressure must increase, the situation being rendered all the more difficult from the fact that large sums of money (upon which interest must be paid) are being expended upon docks and the river service, as well as upon the Great Lakes Railway enterprise. . . . "The question as to the justice of territorial concessions to exploitation companies, as I need not tell you, is much debated. Many Frenchmen are greatly outraged by the system as recently established in French Congo. I must say, it does not commend itself to my mind, for the people are practically reduced to serfdom — that I consider to be a itiild way of putting it. Still, I believe eminent jurists endorse the view that the Government has an absolute right to apportion the forests and undeveloped lands. Perhaps so, but have they the right to compel the people to collect produce and to develop the land ? However, I know there is no making of omelets without the breaking of eggs, and that every great enterprise is bound here and there to tread on individual rights ; and in view of the high aims and even the grand achieve- ments of the Congo State it is to be forgiven much. Violent men are found I. — 2 I 482 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO from time to time to come to the front in every big colonial enterprise, and unfortunately the Belgians have sent some to the Congo. But knowing the Belgian officers and officials as I do, I am greatly pained from time to time to see them all classed together by the British journalist as a bloodthirsty, in- capable lot. I do not think the Britisher himself would have covered the ground so quickly or effectively as the Belgian has done. He might, by reason of his experience perhaps, have avoided some of the pitfalls, but it would have been contrary to history for him to have carried through so great a work with- out richly deserving the lash of the censor. The Congo owes an inestimable debt to the high-minded, far-seeing men who in their devotion to King Leopold took up his Congo enterprise and threw themselves into it with a loyalty beyond any praise I am able to bestow. Unfortunately, the romance of the Congo is wearing off, and the supply of wise and capable men is barely enough for the position of responsibility, and the rank and file are now no longer actuated by an intense loyalty to the King and his work — this to the dis- advantage of the Congo. . . . George Grenfell." To another correspondent in 1903 he vi^rites : — " I want you when you see ... to bring to his notice the fact that the Congo State is doing little or nothing towards the development of a class of native whose great interest it should be to maintain the status quo. Sir Hugh^ understands very clearly that British success has been largely the result of the persistent aim of our administrators to make it a matter of self-interest to an important and numerous class to support the Government. I know that the general lot of the Congo peoples is better and happier for the rule of the State, but the fact is not so evident to the people themselves, and many of them think the black man when the white man leaves the country will manage things better. On the Lower River the people now recognize, I think, that the white man has come to stay, but on the Upper River the people still talk as they used to do on the Lower of the time when they will be left to themselves again. ' The ivory is nearly done, and the rubber will soon be finished, and then the white man will go away again.' South Africa seems destined to become a white man's country, but the Congo can itcver be so. The white man by the mere force of numbers can dominate the situation south of the Zambezi, but he will never do so to the north. The power that is to be firmly established on the Congo is the power that shall be based upon the self-interest of the people or upon that of the leading class. A very considerable amount of enlighten- ment is being acquired by the natives as soldiers in the whole of the black man's belt. As soldiers, large numbers of the Congo and Aruwimi men are widely travelled, and have become resourceful. They are gaining a higher appreciation of their own power and importance in the scale of things, and at the same time are realizing that in many directions their privileges are being curtailed. Instead of a large class being created who recognize it as to their own interest to support the Government, the very reverse is taking place. " The gradual development of a more or less educated class with a personal interest in the development of the resources of the country could be counted upon to favour the stability of the Government under which it prospered. The world is too old and the circumstances of the Tropics too adverse to allow of the Congo being successfully administered without the intelligent co-operation of the heads of the people and without very cogent appeals to their self- interest. Educational facilities for the intelligent and business opportunities for the enterprising would soon create a class whose sympathies would be ^ Sir Hugh Gikean Reid, with whom Grenfell corresponded a good deal. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 483 in favour of a stable government. True, they might also develop the desire for self-government and lead to trouble that way ; but this I take it is both much more remote and much less serious than the continuance of the present social system. Trained intelligence is much more likely to appreciate the resources and advantages of civiHzation than semi-enlightenment, which (following words illegible). Just the measures that should be taken (to check) the fast-spreading (disaffection) are not for me to say : I'm no administrator, but have eyes to see the difficulties ahead, and I should be glad to see the State steering clear of them. Britain would find it difficult to maintain her authority in Africa if she had to rely only on African troops, though she can draw levies from the ex- treme corners of the continent. The Congo people are all neighbours, speaking languages all derived from the same mother-tongue, and the lingua franca of the Congo State is already spoken from Banana Point to the Nile. They live under the same cli- matic conditions, and they are in no way kept apart by any difficulties of creed. They are practically as much at home in one part of the State as in another. Officials are not all blind as to the possibilities ; but Congo service is not generally regarded as a career. It offers no pen- sions. ' It will last my time ' is a sentiment I have often heard ex- pressed. In writing as I do, it must not be thought that I have any reason to apprehend any immediate difficulty. The troubles I foresee are in the future, but how far ahead I cannot say. If the developments that have taken place since the foundation of the State are continued at the same pace, great changes will have to be provided for a few years hence, and these changes can only be intelligently appreciated and provided for by men who make the Congo service a life career. Doubtless things will last my time, but it would be a great joy for me to see things shaping away from, and not towards, disaster." In the same volume of his journal Grenfell appends rough notes, evidently connected with this letter : — " There are three divisions of the people, namely, the small Europeanized class ; the trading middle-men ; and the exploited bushmen. 245. TWO BANGALA SOLDIERS IN THK SERVICE OF THE CONGO STATE These men are off duty and in " mufti." The Bangala are the best, most loyal, and most intelligent soldiers in the State's forces. 484 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " I see Monsieur advances the ' beyond the pale of the family ' idea to justify the bad treatment meted out. To secure loyal subjects self-interest must be appealed to. We should hardly be such ardent Britons if we felt it would be better to be under another type of Government. The good of the people must be sought if commerce is to prosper and order is to be main- tained." APPENDIX III [In 1904-5 Viscount Mountmorres made a long tour of inspection over the Congo Independent State (Mubangi, Aruwimi, main Congo, Lulongo, Busira, lakes Ntomba, Leopold II, and lower Kasai), and in 1905 presented an interesting Report to the Foreign Office. This was subsequently published as a book {The Congo Independait State) by Williams and Norgate. I am permitted to quote some of Lord Mount- morres's opinions and impressions.] Lord Mountmorres admits that the salaries paid to the State officials are peculiarly low in comparison with those in British colonies. But he goes on to state that the Congo officials receive an absolutely comprehensive equipment for Africa at the cost of the State, and during the whole term of their service are provisioned at the expense of their Government and receive various allowances for carriage and postage. They are also inscribed (if they are Belgians) on the list of State annuities, so that after a reasonable term of service they can retire on something equivalent to a pension. He writes in very emphatic terms as to the excellence of the provisions supplied by the State to its officials, whose dietary, according to his description, is far superior to anything that can be obtained by the average British official in tropical Africa. [On this point the present writer can confirm him from his own experience of Belgian stations in the Ituri Forest. The furniture of the houses in this, the then remotest part of the State, was worthy of a good Belgian hotel, and the food, wine, and other provisions of the best quality.] Since this has come into force the death-rate amongst the Belgian officials has diminished from something like 50 per cent to 2 per cent, showing how much to do with health have comfort and good food. " Mr. Grenfell ... is rightly indignant at the unauthorized and unjusti- fiable use that has been made of his name by Congo apologists, who unhesi- tatingly cite him as approving of the whole system as at present existing, and have based their action in so doing on the generous and fair-minded tributes which he has from time to time paid to the good that has been done in the State, without any reference to his very stringent criticism of the evils and abuses that he emphatically maintains exist. The opinions of Grenfell are particularly deserving of attention. . . . He has spent, I believe, some thirty-five years in tropical Africa ; he is a very distinguished explorer and traveller, and has done magnificent work in the only accurate and complete survey of the Congo River and its principal tributaries. He is an authority alike on its topography and its ethnography. He is fully alive to the good that has been done, but he is so decidedly of opinion that this good has been accompanied by great and terrible MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 485 evils, that as a protest he has declined any longer to wear the insignia of the order with which the Sovereign of the Independent State decorated him as a mark of the services he had rendered to the development of the country ; and he publicly announced this protest at one of the sittings of the Royal Com- mission." The summing up of the report of Viscount Mountmorres is that where the State has directly governed the territories of the Congo basin, though it has made some mistakes, has maintained wrong theories sub- sequently abandoned, it has on the whole done great good to the regions governed, as much good as has been achieved in similar regions of tropical Africa by the forces of other European Powers. But he is un- sparing in his condemnation of the " Concessions " regime. For this regime the King of the Belgians beyond all question is to be held per- sonally responsible. Although Lord Mountmorres may not draw this deduction in so many words, it is the only one which a fair-minded reader can deduce from his pages. "To place a large territory (that of the A.B.I.R. Company) under the control of a purely commercial concern, without reserving any rights as to the appoint- ment or supervision of its officials, without insisting on their being possessed of any competent qualification, would itself appear to be a direct permission on the part of the Government to that Company to do as it pleases without fear of any questions being asked. When in addition to this, however, the Company is nominally entrusted with the poUcing of the district, and by the law of the State nominally deprived of all powers of enforcing its policing authority, it is only natural that one of two things, or perhaps both, must occur : either the pohcing will be wholly neglected, or the officials of the Company will have re- course to illegal means of enforcing their authority and maintaining their prestige. In the case of the Abir, it is obvious that both results have followed." As regards the character of certain functionaries employed by this Company, Lord Mountmorres is obliged in several instances to write in very disparaging terms. One of its officials, he concludes, can be most charitably described as a criminal lunatic owing to the atrocities of which he had been guilty. In another phrase he refers to the discredited Mongala Company, which was deprived of its concession owing to the abominable actions of its agents. Elsewhere he admits that in the Abir territory the population has decreased to a most alarming extent since its occupation by the Company. His sweeping condemnation of these doings is made also to apply to the Lulongo Company, " whose territory adjoins that of the Abir, from the point where the name of the Lopori is changed to the Lulongo down to its junction with the Congo." Again he says : — " One of the richest and apparently at one time most populous districts . . . is being laid waste by the greed and cruelty of an unscrupulous and dis- reputable gang, whose atrocious actions may, if not speedily and effectually stopped, lead to a condition of affairs which will constitute a grave menace to the white man's security in Central Africa." 486 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO APPENDIX IV The core of most problems connected with the opening up of Africa is cheap labour. The negro, as compared to the European and Asiatic, is fitful in industry. He can put fire, energy, strength, skill, intelligence into his work if he is in the mood, if he is attracted by an immediate, tangible reward, or is spurred on (as he can be so easily, poor soul !) by affection or admiration for the white man. But work for work's sake in his — to him — delicious climate and well-provided country is no ideal at present native to negro Africa. And then he has been so often cheated. He has been the butt and the prey of the shrewd Caucasian since the uprising of Semiticized Egypt eighty cen- turies ago and down to the last rogueries of South African mine managers.^ But he ivill work- — and none better — if you take him into partnership, convince him of your honesty and treat him fairly. In reference to the Congo problem in 1894 Grenfell writes : — " Labour is good for the people, but only if they find some satisfaction in it. No man cares to go to the trouble of pumping water for the sake of emptying it into the sea. If his work stands he may take some pride in it, or, what the great majority much more appreciate, if the labour results in something more to eat or better to wear, there is an incentive of the most practical kind. . . . Under the present system (the State collection of rubber) the result is really forced labour. It is very important for the future of the State that a healthy commerce should be fostered, and if the people were only paid for their labour they would become accustomed to making use of the goods they receive, and what are now luxuries would soon become necessaries. Instead of this, how- ever, the present system is wasting the resources of the country ; for the people are destroying the rubber vines, not only needlessly as they take the juice, but also of set purpose, so as to destroy (as they think) the value of the country in the eyes of the white man. In many districts they thought their fine farms were an attraction to the Arabs, and so destroyed them." The railway enterprises of Belgium on the Congo having been an admitted success, and the opinions of Messrs. Wauters, Thys, and Goffin commanding respect in British negrophile circles, at the suggestion of the Rev. Lawson Forfeitt I applied to the management of the Lower Congo Railway for information on the labour question in Congoland. As a result, M. Louis Goffin, late Engineer-in-Chief of the Congo Railway [and now Engineer-Director at the Brussels headquarters of the company], allows me to summarize and reprint the following re- marks on the subject of forced labour : — - "Unfortunately, very few of the Congolese-^ can shake themselves free of the influence of a tradition created by the first necessities in the task ' Vide numerous Colonial Blue Books. -' La Main d'CEuvre ati Congo ; also Le Chetnin de fir du Congo. Louis Goffin, Weissen- bruch, Brussels. ^ By "Congolese" M. Goffin means Europeans connected with the Congo. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 487 of opening up Africa. If you question them they will reply for the most part that forced labour is necessary ; that if the black man is not constrained to work he remains idle. This opinion is even shared by some of the highest functionaries. "We also— my comrades and I of the railway — held this view during the first years of the construction of the line from Matadi to Leopoldville, but the facts of the case gradually modified our opinion. ... At the beginning we had several hundred men recruited from the lower grades of the population of Sierra Leone. We were unable to engage the natives of the Cataract region of the Congo, because their labour was considered scarcely to suffice for the needs of ordinary porterage between Matadi and Leopoldville on the part 246. A STREET IN MATADI, THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMERCIAL CENTRE ON THE LOWER CONGO, STARTING-POINT OK THE CONGO RAILWAY of the State, of the Missions, and of trading firms. So we also recruited Kruboys, Accra men, Hausas from Lagos, and natives from Dahome. " We found ourselves, as everybody knows, face to face with great natural obstacles. Moreover, our black personnel, quite as much as the staff of white men, was decimated by sickness. Out of two thousand negroes employed on the construction in 1892, one hundred and fifty a month died from illness, principally in that valley of the Mpozo so much admired nowadays by the traveller comfortably installed in a saloon car. " All along the track one would see corpses of negroes dead of smallpox, dysentery, beri-beri. At times in the morning we might find before the door of our cabin the corpse of some negro dead during the night, placed there by his exasperated comrades as a protest. . . . The men who still remained un- touched by sickness were demoralized by fear, and had to be compelled to work by dint of sheer force, the force used being the negative one of depriving them of all salary or even rations. ... It was, in fact, forced labour. But what were we to do ? It was vitally necessary to construct this line of railway. 488 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO to suppress for ever the far more awful tax of human porterage along this route of the caravans between the Upper and the Lower Congo, 'un sentier sinistre, jalonne de cadavres.' " Of course we treated our men with as much humanity as possible, and did all we could to make their condition sanitary. Little by little we succeeded, and gradually made a selection amongst the black labourers from those races best suited to the climate. But a panic had arisen all along the West Coast of Africa, caused by the sick men whom we had repatriated. This rendered further recruitment in that direction impossible. Then we tried importing West Indian negroes and Chinese from Macao. They fared no better than the first lot of two thousand men who had come from West Africa.^ Still we pegged away at the gradual improvement of the conditions of life for black men and white in this terrible Cataract region. One of the best things we did was the growth of vegetables and the supply of fresh food material, instead of relying on preserved foods and tins. Gradually we were able to induce people to come once more from West Africa, from Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Accra. Under the most elaborately careful conditions of life and comfort, these negro work- men suffered no longer in health or morale. But they produced precious little. We said to ourselves like a recent Commission of Inquiry has declared, ' It is the born indolence of the negro.' We sought for a method of conquering this natural disinclination to work. We might, it is true, use something like force to compel them to work without ceasing during the hours allotted to work ; ^ In regard to the Chinese, a curious incident occurred. They were filled with such horror at the unhealthiness and the frightful heat of the Cataract region, that not being able to smuggle themselves on board steamers and get away to the sea, they fled inland like people distraught. Meeting with little or no hostility from the natives, they gradually wandered as far afield as the Sankuru River in the very heart of south-central Congoland. flere the survivors settled down, married native women, and are actually influencing the population ! (H. H. J.) 247. .\ TRAIN ON THE CONGO RAILWAY MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 489 but this was an expensive and disagreeable proceeding, and would have ended by provoking mutinies. . . . We were therefore in this impasse, when all at once the idea occurred to us to generalize a plan which had been adopted for certain special tasks with picked men. In other words, we adopted piece- tvork, ' travail a la tache ou a primes.' We sought to interest these negro workers directly in the amount of work they put forth. " The immediate results were extraordinary. The work at once was doubled from one day to another. In one year ninety kilometres were con- structed as against thirty-five the year before, and subsequently the increase, the vigour, and the rapidity of the work went on doubling. The aspect of the workshops was completely transformed. Men volunteered for overtime work in order to ensure the completion of their tasks within the fixed period. They RAILWAY STAIlij.\ (i.N ilil. IJNE FROM MATADI TO STANLEY POOL themselves did justice on any sluggard, and dragged him if necessary to his task. " Under this impulsion the aptitude of the negroes for business matters was remarkably manifested. We were able to state that in this respect it was in no way inferior to that of the best European workmen. It is thus that we have been able to take part in the most interesting discussions on cost price, measurements, and other details of close contract work between the head men of the black gangs and the white officials. In some cases the gang would depose their foreman if he was not in their eyes quite competent, or because he did not worry the white man sufficiently in hauling up machinery, explosives, or the material of the Decauville tramway ! . . . Those who read this may observe that in the foregoing paragraph I was dealing with black men from the West Coast of Africa long in direct relations with Europeans ; they might say 'Ah, yes, you would not get the same results if you applied the system of piece- work to Congo natives.' We would reply to this that the greater part of our 490 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO personnel was comprised of people coming from the far hinterland of Sierra Leone or the great bend of the Niger, who had had if anything less direct relations with Europeans previously than was the case with negroes of the Congo Cataract region. . . . We were soon to see how an attempt to interest Congo labourers directly in the results of their work was to answer. The completion of the railway suppressed the hateful system of human porteage and released enormous numbers of Congo men, who were then free to engage in the service of the Railway Company. The Company at once put them on piecework, with the result that it was soon able to rely entirely on local labour, and was not any longer obliged to recruit Senegalese or Sierra Leone men, except for clerical work or as highly-trained arti.sans. At the present time (1905), 1600 Congo natives are employed on the railway as navvies, shunters, engine-drivers, pointsmen, station employes, labourers, etc., etc. At the ex- piration of their term of service they return for a short holiday to their villages, and are replaced by others back from their leave of absence. Their holiday over, they return promptly to work. They have founded prosperous villages all along the line. " What is it that attaches this population to the Railway ? Firstly it is a salary in good money, and a sitfficient salar}- : secondly it is the regular rations of good food [here follow details of the rations]. It is sufficient to compare the men employed by the Railway with the other natives to convince oneself that they are more robust, better nourished, keener, and more active. Out of their salary they can purchase what additional comforts or luxuries they want." Elsewhere in this interesting report Gofifin lays stress on the hateful system employed in the inner basin of the Congo of paying State or other labourers in trade goods or local currencies. Very often they do not want the trade goods in question, while as to the value of the currency, it is so fluctuating and uncertain as not to attract the natives to free labour. Gof¥in lays the utmost stress on the import- ance of paying all native workers with good viotiey, exactly on the same lines as Europeans. If they wish to spend the money, they can, but if they do not, they can save it ; but the possession of this money is quite sufficient to turn the negro from a lazy loafer into a splendid worker. ls\. Coffin goes on to draw the moral that the State itself and all commercial ox concessionnaire zom^dsn&s [and missionary.institutions of no matter what Church] should do the same thing. All labour should be paid for in money. If the Company or Society in question chooses to establish a store and to sell goods at a fair rate, the native, being natu- rally " dispendieux," will probably spend a large proportion of his wages at his employer's shop. If not, he will spend the rest amongst his com- patriots in buying native provisions or in accumulating the marriage price of a wife. M. Gofifin points out that certain French officials in French Congo in- troduced the system of paying native porters in coin, with most happy results as regards facility of recruitment. If there were more Belgian officials in Africa like M. Goffin, and if they had had greater power accorded to them, the Congo State would have been a happier and more prosperous dominion. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 491 APPENDIX V RECORD OF SCIENTIFIC WORK, ETC. ACCOMPLISHED BY THE CONGO STATE The whole of the area of the Congo basin within the poHttcal hmits of the Independent State of the Congo has now been carefully mapped, with the exception of the extreme south-west. The upper waters of the Wamba, Saia-Inzia, Kwengo, Kwilu, Luanje, and above all of the Kasai, still show considerable blanks or stretches of dotted lines. Mr. Emil Torday has done a good deal of late as an independent explorer to map the courses of the riv'ers between the Kwilu and the Kwango, but there are still gaps between his researches and those of Grenfell and the Portuguese. Dr. Leo Frobenius, on behalf of the German Society for the exploration of inner Africa, has of late a little extended our accurate geographical know- ledge of the middle Kasai ; but for the most part the whole course of that river between Maimunene on the north (about 6° 30' S. Lat.) and Katende near the Zambezi watershed is practically unknown. The upper course of the Luebo, the middle course of the Lulua are likewise imperfectly known to geography. These gaps are due to the extreme hostility displayed towards the Congo State by the native kings and chiefs, a hostility dating from the first skirmishes with the State forces in 1892. There is also a little unknown ground immediately to the west of the northern regions of Lake Tanganyika. The plateau and moun- tain region which extends along the edge of the great rift valley from Lake Kivu to the Manyema country has not as yet been completely surveyed. With these exceptions, the geographical work accomplished by the State representatives (for the most part Belgian officers) since the first great revelations of Stanley, Wissmann, and Grenfell is truly remarkable, an achievement without parallel in the history of geo- graphical discovery. In that excellent publication the Bibliographie du Congo by A. J. Wauters, under the heading of " Meteorology and Climatology," will be found lists of contributions to that branch of study by Dr. E. Etienne, Ch. Lemaire, and other Belgian officials of the Congo State. Alfred Dewevre, D. De VVildeman, A. J. Wauters have all published valuable studies on the Congo flora. No less than six important botanical publications, chiefly by De Wildeman, Durand, Emile Laurent, have been published by the State in the "Annales du Musee du Congo." This Congo museum, founded by King Leopold at Tervueren, a suburb of Brussels, about 1883, has issued a very important series of scientific publications besides the botanical studies of Wildeman. It has employed Mr. G. A. Boulenger, 492 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO F.R.S., of the British Museum,^ to illustrate the fish of the Congo basin from the collections made by Lieuts. Wilverth, Wagenaar, and De Bauw (1897); by M. Paul Delhez in 1899-1900 (a magnificent collection); by Commandants Cabra, Descamps, Weyns, and Lemaire ; and by Lieutenants Hecq and Demeuse ; also by the Baptist missionaries, Revs. J. H. Weeks, G. Grenfell, and W. H. Bentley. Mr. Boulenger has also written on new forms of reptiles and batrachians collected in the Congo State, and Alphonse Dubois has illustrated some of the new types of birds, and has given a fairly complete list of the ornithological fauna. Herr Paul Matschie, the well-known zoologist of Berlin, was employed by the Congo Museum to describe and illustrate the remark- able Forest Pig of the Ituri Forest {Hylochcerus iiiiriensis). M. Julien on the Musical Instruments and on all Objects connected with Religious Belief, and the pottery {Ceramics) of the Congo, this last survey being of unique value and of great ethnographical importance. (The names of the authors of these last three admirable monographs are not pub- lished.) Finally, amongst notable publications of the State Museum, is the Dictionary of the Kitabwa language, by the Rev. Father Auguste van Acker. Mention should also be made of the Quelques peuplades du district de VUele, by Professor Joseph Halkin, of Liege, treating of the Ababua and other Bantu tribes on the Bomokandi-Wele River. It may be safely said without fear of contradiction that no African state with the exception of Egypt and perhaps Tunis has been so sumptuous in its contributions to scientific knowledge as the Indepen- dent State of the Congo. One thrills to think of what a gain to human knowledge might have accrued from a proportionate treatment of the Fraipont has just (1908) issued through the Ter- vueren Museum a study of the Okapia genus. 249. DISTICHODUS SEXFASCIATUS, A FISH FROM THE CATARACT CONGO Collected by Baptist missionaries. But perhaps the most important publications of the Congo State have dealt with the Eth- nography and An- thropology. It is difficult to over- praise these works, especially the fol- lowing : The Stone Age on the Congo, by Xavier Stainier, the analytical notes ^ Mr. Boulenger is a Belgian though naturalized in England. His splendidly illustrated studies of the Congo Fish were published by the Congo Museum in six issues in 1898-99, 1900-2. MISDEEDS, MISTAKES, ACHIEVEMENTS 493 British dominions in South and East Africa, the French colony of Algeria, the British West African Colonies and Protectorates, and the French empire of Western Nigeria. In that direction only is any approach made to some of the ethnographical work of the Congo State Museum. The region of the northern and western Niger has of late been well described from an ethnographical point of view by men like Binger and Desplagnes. But with the exception perhaps of Tunis, in none of these regions has the State directly assisted, subsidized, and edited works of scientific research. APPENDIX VI WATERWAYS AND RAILWAYS A GLANCE at the sketch map on p. 495 will show to what a magnificent extent Nature has endowed the interior Congo basin with navigable waterways. Ocean-going steamers from all parts of the world can enter the profound gulf of the Congo estuary and steam inland to Matadi, a distance from the sea of about 1 10 miles along the windings of the channel. Then after a journey of 250 miles (accomplished in two days) by the Congo Railway the traveller or the merchandise is delivered at Stanley Pool. From this interior basin there are between four and five thousand miles of navigable waterways along which steamers can penetrate into the very heart of Central Africa. In addition, lakes Tanganyika and Mweru, the upper Lualaba and Luapula provide navigable routes of another twelve hundred miles, only separated from the main Congo system, in direct water communication with Stanley Pool, by short intervals of unnavigable channels which have already been or are being bridged by railway. When the last of the three main Congo railways is completed (these are: (i) Matadi to Stanley Pool, (2) Stanley Falls to Ponthierville, and ("3) Kindu to Kebwa) it will be possible to travel from the mouth of the Congo to the heart of Katanga in about eighteen days. A much shorter route than this would be from Stanley Pool along the Kwa-Kasai-Sankuru- Lubefu, and then a short line of railway from Lubefu post to Kebwa on the upper Lualaba. Other short lines would connect the Lualaba- Lukuga with Tanganyika and the Lualaba-Laona with Lake Mweru and British Central Africa as far south as Fort Rosebery. These short connecting lines would be of far greater service to the development of Central African commerce, and that of the Congo basin more especially, than the fantastic, expensive, and somewhat purposeless " chemin-de-fer des Grands Lacs" which was to connect Stanley Falls with Lake Albert Nyanza If the three short lines (Lubefu-Lualaba; Lukuga-Tanganyika ; Luvua-Lake Mweru) were constructed in addition to those already accomplished, there would be direct water and rail communication between Rhodesia, the Central Sudan, and the Cameroons hinterland, and between German East Africa and the Atlantic coast. 494 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO APPENDIX VII ARMY SERVICE AS A MEANS OF EDUCATION (settlements of time-expired soldiers) Several allusions to the results of enlisting natives as the armed servants of the State— in fact of subjecting a large proportion of the male population of Congoland to a military training — have been made in the course of this narrative. Some of the results of arming this native soldiery have been adversely commented on by persons quoted in this book. But Grenfell's testimony and that of other missionaries has sometimes been quoted on the other side, notably in regard to the civilizing effects of the colonies of retired soldiers and of the presence in villages of a soldier or policeman stationed there to keep order. It is a double-edged weapon in the hands of a tyrannical regime, not only under the Congo flag, but under other ensigns. If you train thousands of able-bodied males of a subject race to arms and then abuse your position as protector and controller of a nation, you are liable to have your own weapon turned against you. Personally I am strongly in favour of military training— three or four years of soldier life for all negro races. The good results — in the making of sober, clean, intelli- gent, unsuperstitious, orderly, industrious citizens — are patent in all the more intelligently governed British, French, and German colonies and protectorates. The following story (from the B.M.S. //crf/Z/c Missionary Herald') by Mrs. William Forfeitt, of Bopoto, Northern Congo, is a capital instance of the beneficial results achieved in many cases by the military training of the Congo State. " The whole district of Bopoto has been troubled for a long time by a man-eating crocodile. It has had many victims lately, and I dare say has been responsible for others less recent. For a month we heard nothing of it, but suddenly it reappeared. ' How are we to get to our fishing camps,' complained the people, ' now the crocodile has returned ? ' " But deliverance was at hand. An ex-sergeant of the State army, who as a little boy was a member of our household, has now returned to our service. He has commenced a school at the camp of his late comrades, and goes from here every day by canoe, returning in the same way a few hours later. He asked one day if he might take with him a gun and cartridges, in the hope of shooting the enemy ; and on his return two days ago he saw the creature some distance from the bank. " He had only a small canoe and two boys with him. One, not knowing how to swim, begged to be put ashore when he saw what was to happen, and was landed. Then Matombi started after the enemy. He went as near as he dared, and fired, hitting his prey close to the eye and mortally wounding him. The creature was too hurt to dive, but threw its head up and with open jaws tried to rid itself of the unknown thing that had stung it. 496 GEORGE GRENFELL AND THE CONGO " Matombi's little companion, terrified at the dreadful fate that seemed so near them, came and clung to his knees ; but he, telling him not to fear, drew so near that his canoe was almost swamped with the water the animal was churning up in its agony. Again he fired, calling at the same time to the people of the village to come and help capture the prize. And the little boy, although badly frightened, and running often to Matombi for comfort, still stuck to his paddle and kept the canoe right. " In the morning the people had said, ' It is no use taking a gun, for no gun or cartridge can kill this crocodile. He is a witch ' ; and now they were too terrified for some lime to do anything. But when they saw Matombi persevering, and that the creature was evidently helpless, they went out in large numbers in their canoes, every man with his spear poised ready to strike. Then with a shout the spears were thrown, and the cords attached drew the creature on to its doom. The shouting and excitement grew every moment ; then, to our surprise and dehght, we heard a song of praise to God for delivering the enemy into their hands. " When they drew the great reptile ashore, the people, with looks of hatred, began beating the dead body with sticks, saying as they did so, 'Ah, you killed my brother' (or sister), 'and now you are dead. You have made us suffer, and now we will make jw^ suffer.' And after much noise and excitement they fixed a strong chain round the crocodile's head and drew him up the hill to the front of our house. " One idea that is firmly fixed in the minds of these people is that some native of the village is the owner of the crocodile and has bewitched it, and each time any one is killed they say the owner drew the animal from the water to come and catch another victim. You can imagine with what triumph, then, they showed us a hole through one of the limbs of the creature. ' There,' said they; 'now will you say again that the owner did not draw him from the water? There is the hole through which he passed the cord.' " Matombi, of course, was the hero of the hour ; but he took it all very quietly. He was as pleased as anybody at having got rid of their enemy, but his seven years' discipline in the army was quite evident in his control of himself and his feelings, a thing that is quite foreign to the ordinary person. Said they, ' You must not sleep to night, as the crocodile will make you dream most horrible dreams.' But Matombi refused to be frightened and quietly went to bed. They could not make him either excited, frightened, or angry. ' I have been away from this village,' he said, 'and have seen and heard many things, and I can no longer credit all the absurd things I used to believe.' " END OF VOL. I WILLUM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYiMOUTH Thk iiltitutlts givm in llns ni;i|) o[ ihu Cwma are mainly derived from Hclf;iiin computations and Iroiii Grcnfoll. Gicntdl agrees (airly well with the Ltelgiaii figure*, except as regards the level of Stanley I'ool at the shore of Leopuldvillc (which he makt-i S8i) ft. ss against the average 930(1. of the Belgians), and the Mubangi River ut (below) Zongo, the (irenfcll altitude of which is 1 ,3q& (l., and the IJctgian 1 ,180 ft. { ^ y)0 m.). Hut the I'rench altitudes of the Western Mubnngi differ so setiously from those of the Belgians, nnd of Grenfell. as to make some explanation de^iiahle. The I'rtnch estimate of Zongo (below the (itcnfell Falls) is only 320m. (= 1.053ft.), and of Wad.i, above the Grenfell Falls, 379 or even only 36a m. ( - i,J45'l or less). If the Belgians and Grenfell are wr.mi; and the French right, then all the otficial altitudes of the Congo liasin will have lo be lowered consnlerably. if, on the other hand, the error in the ccniputation of Zongo and Wada lies with the l-'roncti, all their other computations North of the Mub^mgi and in the Shnri Uasin, may also be too low by soma seventy odd n H. H.J.