initial commit of ebook 25569HEADmain

1 files changed, 8572 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/25569.txt b/25569.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3e0cccf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/25569.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,8572 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An African Adventure, by Isaac F. Marcosson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An African Adventure
+
+Author: Isaac F. Marcosson
+
+Release Date: May 23, 2008 [EBook #25569]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Julio Reis, Linda McKeown and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
+
+
+        BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+        ADVENTURES IN INTERVIEWING
+
+        PEACE AND BUSINESS
+
+        S. O. S: AMERICAS'S MIRACLE IN FRANCE
+
+        THE BUSINESS OF WAR
+
+        THE REBIRTH OF RUSSIA
+
+        THE WAR AFTER THE WAR
+
+        LEONARD WOOD: PROPHET OF PREPAREDNESS
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: KING ALBERT]
+
+
+
+
+                AN AFRICAN
+                ADVENTURE
+
+
+                    BY
+
+            ISAAC F. MARCOSSON
+
+AUTHOR OF "ADVENTURES IN INTERVIEWING," ETC.
+
+
+        NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
+    LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
+
+                  MCMXXI
+
+
+
+
+              COPYRIGHT . 1921
+      BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+              COPYRIGHT . 1921
+            BY JOHN LANE COMPANY
+
+
+
+            THE PLIMPTON PRESS
+          NORWOOD . MASS . U.S.A
+
+
+                    _To_
+              THOMAS F. RYAN
+        WHO FIRST BEHELD THE VISION
+            OF AMERICA IN THE
+                  CONGO
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+From earliest boyhood when I read the works of Henry M. Stanley and
+books about Cecil Rhodes, Africa has called to me. It was not until I
+met General Smuts during the Great War, however, that I had a definite
+reason for going there.
+
+After these late years of blood and battle America and Europe seemed
+tame. Besides, the economic war after the war developed into a struggle
+as bitter as the actual physical conflict. Discord and discontent became
+the portion of the civilized world. I wanted to get as far as possible
+from all this social unrest and financial dislocation.
+
+So much interest was evinced in the magazine articles which first set
+forth the record of my journey that I was prompted to expand them into
+this book. It may enable the reader to discover a section of the
+one-time Dark Continent without the hardships which I experienced.
+
+                                                          I. F. M.
+
+NEW YORK, _April, 1921_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       CHAPTER                PAGE
+
+    I. SMUTS                    15
+
+   II. "CAPE-TO-CAIRO"          57
+
+  III. RHODES AND RHODESIA     103
+
+   IV. THE CONGO TODAY         139
+
+    V. ON THE CONGO RIVER      177
+
+   VI. AMERICA IN THE CONGO    225
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  King Albert                     _Frontispiece_
+
+  Groote Schuur                 _facing page_ 28
+
+  General J. C. Smuts                         44
+
+  Mr. Marcosson's Route in Africa             56
+
+  Cecil Rhodes                                76
+
+  The Premier Diamond Mine                    90
+
+  Victoria Falls                             102
+
+  Cultivating Citrus Land in Rhodesia        110
+
+  The Grave of Cecil Rhodes                  132
+
+  A Katanga Copper Mine                      138
+
+  Lord Leverhulme                            144
+
+  Robert Williams                            144
+
+  On the Lualaba                             150
+
+  A View on the Kasai                        150
+
+  A Station Scene at Kongola                 156
+
+  A Native Market at Kindu                   162
+
+  Native Fish Traps at Stanley Falls         168
+
+  The Massive Bangalas                       176
+
+  Congo Women in State Dress                 176
+
+  Central African Pygmies                    182
+
+  Women Making Pottery                       190
+
+  The Congo Pickaninny                       190
+
+  The Heart of the Equatorial Forest         198
+
+  Natives Piling Wood                        204
+
+  A Wood Post on the Congo                   204
+
+  Residential Quarters at Alberta            210
+
+  The Comte de Flandre                       210
+
+  A Typical Oil Palm Forest                  216
+
+  Bringing in the Palm Fruit                 216
+
+  A Specimen of Cicatrization                220
+
+  A Sankuru Woman Playing Native Draughts    220
+
+  The Belgian Congo                          224
+
+  Thomas F. Ryan                             228
+
+  Jean Jadot                                 236
+
+  Emile Francqui                             242
+
+  A Belle of the Congo                       246
+
+  Women of the Batetelas                     246
+
+  Fishermen on the Sankuru                   254
+
+  The Falls of the Sankuru                   254
+
+  A Congo Diamond Mine                       260
+
+  How the Mines Are Worked                   260
+
+  Gravel Carriers at a Congo Mine            266
+
+  Congo Natives Picking out Diamonds         266
+
+  Washing out Gravel                         272
+
+  Donald Doyle and Mr. Marcosson             272
+
+  The Park at Boma                           278
+
+  A Street in Matadi                         278
+
+  A General View of Matadi                   282
+
+
+
+
+AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
+
+
+
+
+AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I--SMUTS
+
+
+I
+
+Turn the searchlight on the political and economic chaos that has
+followed the Great War and you find a surprising lack of real
+leadership. Out of the mists that enshroud the world welter only three
+commanding personalities emerge. In England Lloyd George survives amid
+the storm of party clash and Irish discord. Down in Greece Venizelos,
+despite defeat, remains an impressive figure of high ideals and
+uncompromising patriotism. Off in South Africa Smuts gives fresh
+evidence of his vision and authority.
+
+Although he was Britain's principal prop during the years of agony and
+disaster, Lloyd George is, in the last analysis, merely an eloquent and
+spectacular politician with the genius of opportunism. One reason why he
+holds his post is that there is no one to take his place,--another
+commentary on the paucity of greatness. There is no visible heir to
+Venizelos. Besides, Greece is a small country without international
+touch and interest. Smuts, youngest of the trio, looms up as the most
+brilliant statesman of his day and his career has just entered upon a
+new phase.
+
+He is the dominating actor in a drama that not only affects the destiny
+of the whole British Empire, but has significance for every civilized
+nation. The quality of striking contrast has always been his. The
+one-time Boer General, who fought Roberts and Kitchener twenty years
+ago, is battling with equal tenacity for the integrity of the Imperial
+Union born of that war. Not in all history perhaps, is revealed a more
+picturesque situation than obtains in South Africa today. You have the
+whole Nationalist movement crystallized into a single compelling
+episode. In a word, it is contemporary Ireland duplicated without
+violence and extremism.
+
+I met General Smuts often during the Great War. He stood out as the most
+intellectually alert, and in some respects the most distinguished figure
+among the array of nation-guiders with whom I talked, and I interviewed
+them all. I saw him as he sat in the British War Cabinet when the German
+hosts were sweeping across the Western Front, and when the German
+submarines were making a shambles of the high seas. I heard him speak
+with persuasive force on public occasions and he was like a beacon in
+the gloom. He had come to England in 1917 as the representative of
+General Botha, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, to
+attend the Imperial Conference and to remain a comparatively short time.
+So great was the need of him that he did not go home until after the
+Peace had been signed. He signed the Treaty under protest because he
+believed it was uneconomic and it has developed into the irritant that
+he prophesied it would be.
+
+In those war days when we foregathered, Smuts often talked of "the world
+that would be." The real Father of the League of Nations idea, he
+believed that out of the immense travail would develop a larger
+fraternity, economically sound and without sentimentality. It was a
+great and yet a practical dream.
+
+More than once he asked me to come to South Africa. I needed little
+urging. From my boyhood the land of Cecil Rhodes has always held a lure
+for me. Smuts invested it with fresh interest. So I went.
+
+The Smuts that I found at close range on his native heath, wearing the
+mantle of the departed Botha, carrying on a Government with a minority,
+and with the shadow of an internecine war brooding on the horizon, was
+the same serene, clear-thinking strategist who had raised his voice in
+the Allied Councils. Then the enemy was the German and the task was to
+destroy the menace of militarism. Now it was his own unreconstructed
+Boer--blood of his blood,--and behind that Boer the larger problem of a
+rent and dissatisfied universe, waging peace as bitterly as it waged
+war. Smuts the dreamer was again Smuts the fighter, with the fight of
+his life on his hands.
+
+Thus it came about that I found myself in Capetown. Everybody goes out
+to South Africa from England on those Union Castle boats so familiar to
+all readers of English novels. Like the P. & O. vessels that Kipling
+wrote about in his Indian stories, they are among the favorite first
+aids to the makers of fiction. Hosts of heroes in books--and some in
+real life--sail each year to their romantic fate aboard them.
+
+It was the first day of the South African winter when I arrived, but
+back in America spring was in full bloom. I looked out on the same view
+that had thrilled the Portuguese adventurers of the fifteenth century
+when they swept for the first time into Table Bay. Behind the harbor
+rose Table Mountain and stretching from it downward to the sea was a
+land with verdure clad and aglare with the African sun that was to
+scorch my paths for months to come.
+
+Capetown nestles at the foot of a vast flat-topped mass of granite
+unique among the natural elevations of the world. She is another melting
+pot. Here mingle Kaffir and Boer, Basuto and Britisher, East Indian and
+Zulu. The hardy rancher and fortune-hunter from the North Country rub
+shoulders with the globe-trotter. In the bustling streets modern
+taxicabs vie for space with antiquated hansoms bearing names like "Never
+Say Die," "Home Sweet Home," or "Honeysuckle." All the horse-drawn
+public vehicles have names.
+
+You get a familiar feel of America in this South African country and
+especially in the Cape Colony, which is a place of fruits, flowers and
+sunshine resembling California. There is the sense of newness in the
+atmosphere, and something of the abandon that you encounter among the
+people of Australia and certain parts of Canada. It comes from life
+spent in the open and the spirit of pioneering that within a
+comparatively short time has wrested a huge domain from the savage.
+
+What strikes the observer at once is the sharp conflict of race, first,
+between black and white, and then, between Briton and Boer. South of the
+Zambesi River,--and this includes Rhodesia and the Union of South
+Africa,--the native outnumbers the white more than six to one and he is
+increasing at a much greater rate than the European. Hence you have an
+inevitable conflict. Race lies at the root of the South African trouble
+and the racial reconciliation that Rhodes and Botha set their hopes upon
+remains an elusive quantity.
+
+I got a hint of what Smuts was up against the moment I arrived. I had
+cabled him of my coming and he sent an orderly to the steamer with a
+note of welcome and inviting me to lunch with him at the House of
+Parliament the next day. In the letter, among other things he said: "You
+will find this a really interesting country, full of curious problems."
+How curious they were I was soon to find out.
+
+I called for him at his modest book-lined office in a street behind the
+Parliament Buildings and we walked together to the House. Heretofore I
+had only seen him in the uniform of a Lieutenant General in the British
+Army. Now he wore a loose-fitting lounge suit and a slouch hat was
+jammed down on his head. In the change from khaki to mufti--and few men
+can stand up under this transition without losing some of the character
+of their personal appearance,--he remained a striking figure. There is
+something wistful in his face--an indescribable look that projects
+itself not only through you but beyond. It is not exactly preoccupation
+but a highly developed concentration. This look seemed to be enhanced by
+the ordeal through which he was then passing. In his springy walk was a
+suggestion of pugnacity. His whole manner was that of a man in action
+and who exults in it. Roosevelt had the same characteristic but he
+displayed it with much more animation and strenuosity.
+
+We sat down in the crowded dining room of the House of Parliament where
+the Prime Minister had invited a group of Cabinet Ministers and leading
+business men of Capetown. Around us seethed a noisy swirl which
+reflected the turmoil of the South African political situation.
+Parliament had just convened after an historic election in which the
+Nationalists, the bitter antagonists of Botha and Smuts, had elected a
+majority of representatives for the first time. Smuts was hanging on to
+the Premiership by his teeth. A sharp division of vote, likely at any
+moment, would have overthrown the Government. It meant a regime hostile
+to Britain that carried with it secession and the remote possibility of
+civil war.
+
+In that restaurant, as throughout the whole Union, Smuts was at that
+moment literally the observed of all observers. Far off in London the
+powers-that-be were praying that this blonde and bearded Boer could
+successfully man the imperial breach. Yet he sat there smiling and
+unafraid and the company that he had assembled discussed a variety of
+subjects that ranged from the fall in exchange to the possibilities of
+the wheat crop in America.
+
+The luncheon was the first of various meetings with Smuts. Some were
+amid the tumult of debate or in the shadow of the legislative halls,
+others out in the country at _Groote Schuur_, the Prime Minister's
+residence, where we walked amid the gardens that Cecil Rhodes loved, or
+sat in the rooms where the Colossus "thought in terms of continents." It
+was a liberal education.
+
+Before we can go into what Smuts said during these interviews it is
+important to know briefly the whole approach to the crowded hour that
+made the fullest test of his resource and statesmanship. Clearly to
+understand it you must first know something about the Boer and his long
+stubborn struggle for independence which ended, for a time at least, in
+the battle and blood of the Boer War.
+
+Capetown, the melting pot, is merely a miniature of the larger boiling
+cauldron of race which is the Union of South Africa. In America we also
+have an astonishing mixture of bloods but with the exception of the
+Bolshevists and other radical uplifters, our population is loyally
+dedicated to the American flag and the institutions it represents. With
+us Latin, Slav, Celt, and Saxon have blended the strain that proved its
+mettle as "Americans All" under the Stars and Stripes in France. We have
+given succor and sanctuary to the oppressed of many lands and these
+foreign elements, in the main, have not only been grateful but have
+proved to be distinct assets in our national expansion. We are a merged
+people.
+
+With South Africa the situation is somewhat different. The roots of
+civilization there were planted by the Dutch in the days of the Dutch
+East India Company when Holland was a world power. The Dutchman is a
+tenacious and stubborn person. Although the Huguenots emigrated to the
+Cape in considerable force in the seventeenth century and intermarried
+with the transplanted Hollanders, the Dutch strain, and with it the
+Dutch characteristics predominated. They have shaped South African
+history ever since. This is why the Boer is still referred to in popular
+parlance as "a Dutchman."
+
+The Dutch have always been a proud and liberty-loving people, as the
+Duke of Alva and the Spaniard learned to their cost. This inherited
+desire for freedom has flamed in the hearts of the Boers. In the early
+African day they preferred to journey on to the wild and unknown places
+rather than sacrifice their independence. What is known as "The Great
+Trek" of the thirties, which opened up the Transvaal and subsequently
+the Orange Free State and Natal, was due entirely to unrest among the
+Cape Boers. There is something of the epic in the narrative of those
+doughty, psalm-singing trekkers who, like the Mormons in the American
+West, went forth in their canvas-covered wagons with a rifle in one hand
+and the Bible in the other. They fought the savage, endured untold
+hardships, and met fate with a grim smile on their lips. It took Britain
+nearly three costly years to subdue their descendants, an untrained army
+of farmers.
+
+A revelation of the Boer character, therefore, is an index to the South
+African tangle. His enemies call the Boer "a combination of cunning and
+childishness." As a matter of fact the Boer is distinct among
+individualists. "Oom Paul" Kruger was a type. A fairly familiar story
+will concretely illustrate what lies within and behind the race. On one
+occasion his thumb was nearly severed in an accident. With his
+pocket-knife he cut off the finger, bound up the wound with a rag, and
+went about his business.
+
+The old Boer--and the type survives--was a Puritan who loved his
+five-thousand-acre farm where he could neither see nor hear his
+neighbors, who read the Good Word three times a day, drank prodigious
+quantities of coffee, spoke "_taal_" the Dutch dialect, and reared a
+huge family. Botha, for example, was one of thirteen children, and his
+father lamented to his dying day that he had not done his full duty by
+his country!
+
+Isolation was the Boer fetich. This instinct for aloofness,--principally
+racial,--animates the sincere wing of the Nationalist Party today. Men
+like Botha and Smuts and their followers adapted themselves to
+assimilation but there remained the "bitter-end" element that rebelled
+in arms against the constituted authority in 1914 and had to be put down
+with merciless hand. This element now seeks to achieve through more
+peaceful ends what it sought to do by force the moment Britain became
+involved in the Great War. The reason for the revolt of 1914, in a
+paragraph, was Britain's far-flung call to arms. The unreconstructed
+Boers refused to fight for the Power that humbled them in 1902. They
+seized the moment to make a try for what they called "emancipation."
+
+To go back for a moment, when the British conquered the Cape and
+thousands of Englishmen streamed out to Africa to make their fortunes,
+the Boer at once bristled with resentment. His isolation was menaced. He
+regarded the Briton as an "_Uitlander_"--an outsider--and treated him as
+an undesirable alien. In the Transvaal and the Orange Free State he was
+denied the rights that are accorded to law-abiding citizens in other
+countries. Hence the Jameson Raid, which was an ill-starred protest
+against the narrow, copper-riveted Boer rule, and later the final and
+sanguinary show-down in the Boer War, which ended the dream of Boer
+independence.
+
+In 1910 was established the Union of South Africa, comprising the
+Transvaal, the Orange Free State, Natal and the Cape Colony which
+obtained responsible government and which is to all intents and purposes
+a dominion as free as Australia or Canada. England sends out a
+Governor-General, usually a high-placed and titled person but he is a
+be-medalled figure-head,--an ornamental feature of the landscape. His
+principal labours are to open fairs, attend funerals, preside at
+harmless gatherings, and bestow decorations upon worthy persons. First
+Botha, and later Smuts, have been the real rulers of the country.
+
+The Union Constitution decreed that bi-lingualism must prevail. As a
+result every public notice, document, and time-table is printed in both
+English and Dutch. The tie of language is a strong one and this eternal
+and unuttered presence of the "_taal_" has been an asset for the
+Nationalists to exploit. It is a link with the days of independence.
+
+Following the Boer War came a sharp cleavage among the Boers. That great
+farm-bred soldier and statesman, Louis Botha, accepted the verdict and
+became the leader of what might be called a reconciled reconstruction.
+Firm in the belief that the future of South Africa was greater than the
+smaller and selfish issue of racial pride and prejudice, he rallied his
+open-minded and far-seeing countrymen around him. Out of this group
+developed the South African Party which remains the party of the Dutch
+loyal to British rule. To quote the program of principles, "Its
+political object is the development of a South African spirit of
+national unity and self-reliance through the attainment of the lasting
+union of the various sections of the people."
+
+Botha was made Premier of the Transvaal as soon as the Colony was
+granted self-government and with the accomplishment of Union was named
+Prime Minister of the Federation. The first man that he called to the
+standard of the new order to become his Colonial Minister, or more
+technically, Minister of the Interior, was Smuts, who had left his law
+office in Johannesburg to fight the English in 1900 and who displayed
+the same consummate strategy in the field that he has since shown in
+Cabinet meeting and Legislative forum. With peace he returned to law but
+not for long. Now began his political career--he has held public office
+continuously ever since--that is a vital part of the modern history of
+South Africa.
+
+In the years immediately following Union the genius of Botha had full
+play. He wrought a miracle of evolution. Under his influence the land
+which still bore the scars of war was turned to plenty. He was a farmer
+and he bent his energy and leadership to the rebuilding of the shattered
+commonwealths. Their hope lay in the soil. His right arm was Smuts, who
+became successively Minister of Finance and Minister of Public Defense.
+
+The belief that reconciliation had dawned was rudely disturbed when the
+Great War crashed into civilization. The extreme Nationalists rebelled
+and it was Botha, aided by Smuts, who crushed them. Beyers, the
+ringleader, was drowned while trying to escape across the Vaal River,
+DeWet was defeated in the field, De la Rey was accidentally shot, and
+Maritz became a fugitive. Botha then conquered the Germans in German
+South-West Africa and Smuts subsequently took over the command of the
+Allied Forces in German East Africa. When Botha died in 1919 Smuts not
+only assumed the Premiership of the Union but he also inherited the
+bitter enmity that General J. B. M. Hertzog bore towards his lamented
+Chief.
+
+Now we come to the crux of the whole business, past and present. Who is
+Hertzog and what does he stand for?
+
+If you look at your history of the Boer War you will see that one of the
+first Dutch Generals to take the field and one of the last to leave it
+was Hertzog, an Orange Free State lawyer who had won distinction on the
+Bench. He helped to frame the Union Constitution and on the day he
+signed it, declared that it was a distinct epoch in his life. A Boer of
+the Boers, he seemed to catch for the moment, the contagion that
+radiated from Botha and spelled a Greater South Africa.
+
+Botha made him Minister of Justice and all was well. But deep down in
+his heart Hertzog remained unrepentant. When the question of South
+Africa's contribution to the Imperial Navy came up in 1912 he fought it
+tooth and nail. In fiery utterances attacking the Government he
+denounced Botha as a jingoist and an imperialist. Just about this time
+he made the famous speech in which he stated his ideal of South Africa.
+He declared that Briton and Boer were "two separate streams"--two
+nationalities each flowing in a separate channel. The "two streams"
+slogan is now the Nationalist battlecry.
+
+Such procedure on the part of Hertzog demanded prompt action on the part
+of Botha, who called upon his colleague either to suppress his
+particular brand of anathema or resign. Hertzog not only built a bigger
+bonfire of denunciation but refused to resign.
+
+Botha thereupon devised a unique method of ridding himself of his
+uncongenial Minister. He resigned, the Government fell, and the Cabinet
+dissolved automatically. Hertzog was left out in the cold. The
+Governor-General immediately re-appointed Botha Prime Minister and he
+reorganized his Cabinet without the undesirable Hertzog.
+
+Hertzog became the Stormy Petrel of South Africa, vowing vengeance
+against Botha and Britain. He galvanized the Nationalist Party, which up
+to this time had been merely a party of opposition, into what was
+rapidly becoming a flaming secession movement. The South African Party
+developed into the only really national party, while its opponent,
+although bearing the name of National, was solely and entirely racial.
+
+The first real test of strength was in the election of 1915. The
+campaign was bitter and belligerent. The venom of the Nationalist Party
+was concentrated on Smuts. Many of his meetings became bloody riots. He
+was the target for rotten fruit and on one occasion an attempt was made
+on his life. The combination of the Botha personality and the Smuts
+courage and reason won out and the South African Party remained in
+power.
+
+Undaunted, Hertzog carried on the fight. He soon had the supreme
+advantage of having the field to himself because Botha was off fighting
+the Germans and Smuts had gone to England to help mould the Allied
+fortunes. The Nationalist leader made hay while the red sun of war
+shone. Every South African who died on the battlefield was for him just
+another argument for separation from England.
+
+When Ireland declared herself a "republic" Hertzog took the cue and
+counted his cause in with that of the "small nations" that needed
+self-determination. "Afrika for the Afrikans," the old motto of the
+_Afrikander Bond_, was unfurled from the masthead and the sedition
+spread. It not only recruited the Boers who had an ancient grievance
+against Great Britain, but many others who secretly resented the Botha
+and Smuts intimacy with "the conquerors." Some were sons and grandsons
+of the old "_Vortrekkers_," who not only delighted to speak the "_taal_"
+exclusively but who had never surrendered the ideal of independence.
+
+While the Dutch movement in South Africa strongly resembles the Irish
+rebellion there are also some marked differences. In South Africa there
+is no religious barrier and as a result there has been much
+intermarriage between Briton and Boer. The English in South Africa bear
+the same relation to the Nationalist movement there that the Ulsterites
+bear to the Sinn Feiners in Ireland. Instead of being segregated as are
+the followers of Sir Edward Carson, they are scattered throughout the
+country.
+
+At the General Election held early in 1920,--general elections are held
+every five years,--the results were surprising. The Nationalists
+returned a majority of four over the South African Party in Parliament.
+It left Smuts to carry on his Government with a minority. To add to his
+troubles, the Labour Party,--always an uncertain proposition,--increased
+its representation from a mere handful to twenty-one, while the
+Unionists, who comprise the straight-out English-speaking Party, whose
+stronghold is Natal, suffered severe losses. Smuts could not very well
+count the latter among his open allies because it would have alienated
+the hard-shell Boers in the South African Party.
+
+This was the situation that I found on my arrival in Capetown. On one
+hand was Smuts, still Prime Minister, taxing his every resource as
+parliamentarian and pacificator to maintain the Union and prevent a
+revolt from Britain--all in the face of a bitter and hostile majority.
+On the other hand was Hertzog, bent on secession and with a solid array
+of discontents behind him. The two former comrades of the firing line,
+as the heads of their respective groups, were locked in a momentous
+political life-and-death struggle the outcome of which may prove to be
+the precedent for Ireland, Egypt, and India.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright South African Railways_
+
+GROOTE SCHUUR]
+
+
+II
+
+Yet Smuts continued as Premier which means that he brought the life of
+Parliament to a close without a sharp division. Moreover, he
+manoeuvered his forces into a position that saved the day for Union
+and himself. How did he do it?
+
+I can demonstrate one way and with a rather personal incident. During
+the week I spent in Capetown Smuts was an absorbed person as you may
+imagine. The House was in session day and night and there were endless
+demands on him. The best opportunities that we had for talk were at
+meal-time. One evening I dined with him in the House restaurant. When we
+sat down we thought that we had the place to ourselves. Suddenly Smuts
+cast his eye over the long room and saw a solitary man just commencing
+his dinner in the opposite corner. Turning to me he said:
+
+"Do you know Cresswell?"
+
+"I was introduced to him yesterday," I replied.
+
+"Would you mind if I asked him to dine with us?"
+
+When I assured him that I would be delighted, the Prime Minister got up,
+walked over to Cresswell and asked him to join us, which he did.
+
+The significant part of this apparently simple performance, which had
+its important outcome, was this. Colonel F. H. P. Cresswell is the
+leader of the Labour Party in South Africa. By profession a mining
+engineer, he led the forces of revolt in the historic industrial
+upheaval in the Rand in what Smuts denounced as a "Syndicalist
+Conspiracy." Riot, bloodshed, and confusion reigned for a considerable
+period at Johannesburg and large bodies of troops had to be called out
+to restore order. At the very moment that we sat down to dine that night
+no one knew just what Cresswell and the Labourites with their new-won
+power would do. Smuts, as Minister of Finance, had deported some of
+Cresswell's men and Cresswell himself narrowly escaped drastic
+punishment.
+
+When Smuts brought Cresswell over he said jokingly to me:
+
+"Cresswell is a good fellow but I came near sending him to jail once."
+
+Cresswell beamed and the three of us amiably discussed various topics
+until the gong sounded for the assembling of the House.
+
+What was the result? Before I left Capetown and when the first of the
+few occasions which tested the real voting strength of Parliament arose,
+Cresswell and some of his adherents voted with Smuts. I tell this little
+story to show that the man who today holds the destiny of South Africa
+in his hands is as skillful a diplomat as he is soldier and statesman.
+
+It was at one of these quiet dinners with Smuts at the House that he
+first spoke about Nationalism. He said: "The war gave Nationalism its
+death blow. But as a matter of fact Nationalism committed suicide in the
+war."
+
+"But what is Nationalism?" I asked him.
+
+"A water-tight nation in a water-tight compartment," he replied. "It is
+a process of regimentation like the old Germany that will soon merge
+into a new Internationalism. What seems to be at this moment an orgy of
+Nationalism in South Africa or elsewhere is merely its death gasp. The
+New World will be a world of individualism dominated by Britain and
+America.
+
+"What about the future?" I asked him. His answer was:
+
+"The safety of the future depends upon Federation, upon a League of
+Nations that will develop along economic and not purely sentimental
+lines. The New Internationalism will not stop war but it can regulate
+exchange, and through this regulation can help to prevent war.
+
+"I believe in an international currency which will be a sort of legal
+tender among all the nations. Why should the currency of the country
+depreciate or rise with the fortunes of war or with its industrial or
+other complications? Misfortune should not be penalized fiscally."
+
+I brought up the question of the lack of accord which then existed
+between Britain and America and suggested that perhaps the fall in
+exchange had something to do with it, whereupon he said: "Yes, I think
+it has. It merely illustrates the point that I have just made about an
+international currency."
+
+We came back to the subject of individualism, which led Smuts to say:
+
+"The Great War was a striking illustration of the difference between
+individualism and nationalism. Hindenberg commanded the only army in the
+war. It was a product of nationalism. The individualism of the
+Anglo-Saxon is such that it becomes a mob but it is an intelligent mob.
+Haig and Pershing commanded such mobs."
+
+I tried to probe Smuts about Russia. He was in London when I returned
+from Petrograd in 1917 and I recall that he displayed the keenest
+interest in what I told him about Kerensky and the new order that I had
+seen in the making. I heard him speak at a Russian Fair in London. The
+whole burden of his utterance was the hope that the Slav would achieve
+discipline and organization. At that time Russia redeemed from autocracy
+looked to be a bulwark of Allied victory. The night we talked about
+Russia at Capetown she had become the prey of red terror and the
+plaything of organized assassination.
+
+Smuts looked rather wistful when he said:
+
+"You cannot defeat Russia. Napoleon learned this to his cost and so will
+the rest of the world. I do not know whether Bolshevism is advancing or
+subsiding. There comes a time when the fiercest fires die down. But the
+best way to revive or rally all Russia to the Soviet Government is to
+invade the country and to annex large slices of it."
+
+These utterances were made during those more or less hasty meals at the
+House of Parliament when the Premier's mind was really in the
+Legislative Hall nearby where he was fighting for his administrative
+life. It was far different out at _Groote Schuur_, the home of the Prime
+Minister, located in Rondebosch, a suburb about nine miles from
+Capetown. In the open country that he loves, and in an environment that
+breathed the romance and performance of England's greatest
+empire-builder, I caught something of the man's kindling vision and
+realized his ripe grasp of international events.
+
+_Groote Schuur_ is one of the best-known estates in the world. Cecil
+Rhodes in his will left it to the Union as the permanent residence of
+the Prime Minister. Ever since I read the various lives of Rhodes I had
+had an impatient desire to see this shrine of achievement. Here Rhodes
+came to live upon his accession to the Premiership of the Cape Colony;
+here he fashioned the British South Africa Company which did for
+Rhodesia what the East India Company did for India; here came prince and
+potentate to pay him honour; here he dreamed his dreams of conquest
+looking out at mountain and sea; here lived Jameson and Kipling; here
+his remains lay in state when at forty-nine the fires of his restless
+ambition had ceased.
+
+_Groote Schuur_, which in Dutch means "Great Granary," was originally
+built as a residence and store-house for one of the early Dutch
+Governors of the Cape. It is a beautiful example of the Dutch
+architecture that you will find throughout the Colony and which is not
+surpassed in grace or comfort anywhere. When Rhodes acquired it in the
+eighties the grounds were comparatively limited. As his power and
+fortune increased he bought up all the surrounding country until today
+you can ride for nine miles across the estate. You find no neat lawns
+and dainty flower-beds. On the place, as in the house itself, you get
+the sense of bigness and simplicity which were the keynotes of the
+Rhodes character.
+
+One reason why Rhodes acquired _Groote Schuur_ was that behind it rose
+the great bulk of Table Mountain. He loved it for its vastness and its
+solitude. On the back _stoep_, which is the Dutch word for porch, he sat
+for hours gazing at this mountain which like the man himself was
+invested with a spirit of immensity.
+
+It was a memorable experience to be at _Groote Schuur_ with Smuts, who
+has lived to see the realization of the hope of Union which thrilled
+always in the heart of Cecil Rhodes. I remember that on the first night
+I went out the Prime Minister took me through the house himself. It has
+been contended by Smuts' enemies that he was a "creature of Rhodes." I
+discovered that Smuts, with the exception of having made a speech of
+welcome when Rhodes visited the school that he attended as a boy, had
+never even met the Englishman who left his impress upon a whole land.
+
+_Groote Schuur_ has been described so much that it is not necessary for
+me to dwell upon its charm and atmosphere here. To see it is to get a
+fresh and intimate realization of the personality which made the
+establishment an unofficial Chancellery of the British Empire.
+
+Two details, however, have poignant and dramatic interest. In the
+simple, massive, bed-room with its huge bay window opening on Table
+Mountain and a stretch of lovely countryside, hangs the small map of
+Africa that Rhodes marked with crimson ink and about which he made the
+famous utterance, "It must be all red." Hanging on the wall in the
+billiard room is the flag with Crescent and Cape device that he had made
+to be carried by the first locomotive to travel from Cairo to the Cape.
+That flag has never been unfurled to the breeze but the vision that
+beheld it waving in the heart of the jungle is soon to become an
+accomplished fact.
+
+It was on a night at _Groote Schuur_, as I walked with Smuts through the
+acres of hydrangeas and bougainvillea (Rhodes' favorite flowers), with a
+new moon peeping overhead that I got the real mood of the man. Pointing
+to the faint silvery crescent in the sky I said: "General, there's a new
+moon over us and I'm sure it means good luck for you."
+
+"No," he replied, "it's the man that makes the luck."
+
+He had had a trying day in the House and was silent in the motor car
+that brought us out. The moment we reached the country and he sniffed
+the scent of the gardens the anxiety and preoccupation fell away. He
+almost became boyish. But when he began to discuss great problems the
+lightness vanished and he became the serious thinker.
+
+We harked back to the days when I had first seen him in England. I asked
+him to tell me what he thought of the aftermath of the stupendous
+struggle. He said:
+
+"The war was just a phase of world convulsion. It made the first rent in
+the universal structure. For years the trend of civilization was toward
+a super-Nationalism. It is easy to trace the stages. The Holy Roman
+Empire was a phase of Nationalism. That was Catholic. Then came the
+development of Nationalism, beginning with Napoleon. That was
+Protestant. Now began the building of water-tight compartments,
+otherwise known as nations. Germany represented the most complete
+development.
+
+"But that era of 'my country,' 'my power,'--it is all a form of national
+ego,--is gone. The four great empires,--Turkey, Germany, Russia and
+Austria,--have crumbled. The war jolted them from their high estate. It
+started the universal cataclysm. Centuries in the future some
+perspective can be had and the results appraised.
+
+"Meanwhile, we can see the beginning. The world is one. Humanity is one
+and must be one. The war, at terrible cost, brought the peoples
+together. The League of Nations is a faint and far-away evidence of this
+solidarity. It merely points the way but it is something. It is not
+academic formulas that will unite the peoples of the world but
+intelligence."
+
+Smuts now turned his thought to a subject not without interest for
+America, for he said:
+
+"The world has been brought together by the press, by wireless, indeed
+by all communication which represents the last word in scientific
+development. Yet political institutions cling to old and archaic
+traditions. Take the Presidency of the United States. A man waits for
+four months before he is inaugurated. The incumbent may work untold
+mischief in the meantime. It is all due to the fact that in the days
+when the American Constitution was framed the stagecoach and the horse
+were the only means of conveyance. The world now travels by aeroplane
+and express train, yet the antiquated habits continue.
+
+"So with political parties and peoples, the British Empire included.
+They need to be brought abreast of the times. The old pre-war British
+Empire, for example, is gone in the sense of colonies or subordinate
+nations clustering around one master nation. The British Empire itself
+is developing into a real League of Nations,--a group of partner
+peoples."
+
+"What of America and the future?" I asked him.
+
+"America is the leaven of the future," answered Smuts. "She is the
+life-blood of the League of Nations. Without her the League is stifled.
+America will give the League the peace temper. You Americans are a
+pacific people, slow to war but terrible and irresistible when you once
+get at it. The American is an individualist and in that new and
+inevitable internationalism the individual will stand out, the American
+pre-eminently."
+
+Throughout this particular experience at _Groote Schuur_ I could not
+help marvelling on the contrast that the man and the moment presented.
+We walked through a place of surpassing beauty. Ahead brooded the black
+mystery of the mountains and all around was a fragrant stillness broken
+only by the quick, almost passionate speech of this seer and thinker,
+animate with an inspiring ideal of public service, whose mind leaped
+from the high places of poetry and philosophy on to the hiving
+battlefield of world event. It seemed almost impossible that nine miles
+away at Capetown raged the storm that almost within the hour would again
+claim him as its central figure.
+
+The Smuts statements that I have quoted were made long before the
+Presidential election in America. I do not know just what Smuts thinks
+of the landslide that overwhelmed the Wilson administration and with it
+that well-known Article X, but I do know that he genuinely hopes that
+the United States somehow will have a share in the new international
+stewardship of the world. He would welcome any order that would enable
+us to play our part.
+
+No one can have contact with Smuts without feeling at once his intense
+admiration for America. One of his ambitions is to come to the United
+States. It is characteristic of him that he has no desire to see
+skyscrapers and subways. His primary interest is in the great farms of
+the West. "Your people," he once said to me, "have made farming a
+science and I wish that South Africa could emulate them. We have farms
+in vast area but we have not yet attained an adequate development."
+
+I was amazed at his knowledge of American literature. He knows Hamilton
+backwards, has read diligently about the life and times of Washington,
+and is familiar with Irving, Poe, Hawthorne and Emerson. One reason why
+he admires the first American President is because he was a farmer.
+Smuts knows as much about rotation of crops and successful chicken
+raising as he does about law and politics. He said:
+
+"I am an eighty per cent farmer and a Boer, and most people think a Boer
+is a barbarian."
+
+Despite his scholarship he remains what he delights to call himself, "a
+Boer." He still likes the simple Boer things, as this story will show.
+During the war, while he was a member of the British War Cabinet and
+when Lloyd George leaned on him so heavily for a multitude of services,
+a young South African Major, fresh from the Transvaal, brought him a box
+of home delicacies. The principal feature of this package was a piece of
+what the Boers call "biltong," which is dried venison. The Major gave
+the package to an imposing servant in livery at the Savoy Hotel, where
+the General lived, to be delivered to him. Smuts was just going out and
+encountered the man carrying it in. When he learned that it was from
+home, he grabbed the box, saying: "I'll take it up myself." Before he
+reached his apartment he was chewing away vigorously on a mouthful of
+"biltong" and having the time of his life.
+
+The contrast between Smuts and his predecessor Botha is striking. These
+two men, with the possible exception of Kruger, stand out in the annals
+of the Boer. Kruger was the dour, stolid, canny, provincial trader. The
+only time that his interest ever left the confines of the Transvaal was
+when he sought an alliance with William Hohenzollern, and that person, I
+might add, failed him at the critical moment.
+
+Botha was the George Washington of South Africa,--the farmer who became
+Premier. He was big of body and of soul,--big enough to know when he was
+beaten and to rebuild out of the ruins. Even the Nationalists trusted
+him and they do not trust Smuts. It is the old story of the prophet in
+his own country. There are many people in South Africa today who believe
+that if Botha were alive there would be no secession movement.
+
+The Boers who oppose him politically call Smuts "Slim Jannie." The
+Dutch word "slim" means tricky and evasive. Not so very long ago Smuts
+was in a conference with some of his countrymen who were not altogether
+friendly to him. He had just remarked on the long drought that was
+prevailing. One of the men present went to the window and looked out.
+When asked the reason for this action he replied:
+
+"Smuts says that there's a drought. I looked out to see if it was
+raining."
+
+When you come to Smuts in this analogy you behold the Alexander Hamilton
+of his nation, the brilliant student, soldier, and advocate. Of all his
+Boer contemporaries he is the most cosmopolitan. Nor is this due
+entirely to the fact that he went to Cambridge where he left a record
+for scholarship, and speaks English with a decided accent. It is because
+he has what might be called world sense. His career, and more especially
+his part at the Peace Conference and since, is a dramatization of it.
+
+To the student of human interest Smuts is a fertile subject. His life
+has been a cinema romance shot through with sharp contrasts. Here is one
+of them. When leaders of the shattered Boer forces gathered in
+_Vereeniging_ to discuss the Peace Terms with Kitchener in 1902, Smuts,
+who commanded a flying guerilla column, was besieging the little mining
+town of O'okiep. He received a summons from Botha to attend. It was
+accompanied by a safe-conduct pass signed "D. Haig, Colonel." Later Haig
+and Smuts stood shoulder to shoulder in a common cause and helped to
+save civilization.
+
+Smuts is more many-sided than any other contemporary Prime Minister and
+for that matter, those that have gone into retirement, that is, men like
+Asquith in England and Clemenceau in France. Among world statesmen the
+only mind comparable to his is that of Woodrow Wilson. They have in
+common a high intellectuality. But Wilson in his prime lacked the hard
+sense and the accurate knowledge of men and practical affairs which are
+among the chief Smuts assets.
+
+Speaking of Premiers brings me to the inevitable comparison between
+Smuts and Lloyd George. I have seen them both in varying circumstances,
+both in public and in private and can attempt some appraisal.
+
+Each has been, and remains, a pillar of Empire. Each has emulated the
+Admirable Crichton in the variety and multiplicity of public posts.
+Lloyd George has held five Cabinet posts in England and Smuts has
+duplicated the record in South Africa. Each man is an inspired orator
+who owes much of his advancement to eloquent tongue. Their platform
+manner is totally different. Lloyd George is fascinatingly magnetic in
+and out of the spotlight while Smuts is more coldly logical. When you
+hear Lloyd George you are stirred and even exalted by his golden
+imagery. The sound of his voice falls on the ear like music. You admire
+the daring of his utterance but you do not always remember everything he
+says.
+
+With Smuts you listen and you remember. He has no tricks of the
+spellbinder's trade. He is forceful, convincing, persuasive, and what is
+more important, has the quality of permanency. Long after you have left
+his presence the words remain in your memory. If I had a case in court I
+would like to have Smuts try it. His specialty is pleading.
+
+Lloyd George seldom reads a book. The only volumes I ever heard him say
+that he had read were Mr. Dooley and a collection of the Speeches of
+Abraham Lincoln. He has books read for him and with a Roosevelt faculty
+for assimilation, gives you the impression that he has spent his life in
+a library.
+
+Smuts is one of the best-read men I have met. He seems to know something
+about everything. He ranges from Joseph Conrad to Kant, from Booker
+Washington to Tolstoi. History, fiction, travel, biography, have all
+come within his ken. I told him I proposed to go from Capetown to the
+Congo and possibly to Angola. His face lighted up. "Ah, yes," he said,
+"I have read all about those countries. I can see them before me in my
+mind's eye."
+
+One night at dinner at _Groote Schuur_ we had sweet potatoes. He asked
+me if they were common in America. I replied that down in Kentucky where
+I was born one of the favorite negro dishes was "'possum and sweet
+potatoes." He took me up at once saying:
+
+"Oh, yes, I have read about ''possum pie' in Joel Chandler Harris'
+books." Then he proceeded to tell me what a great institution "Br'er
+Rabbit" was.
+
+We touched on German poetry and I quoted two lines that I considered
+beautiful. When I remarked that I thought Heine was the author he
+corrected me by proving that they were written by Schiller.
+
+Lloyd George could never carry on a conversation like this for the
+simple reason that he lacks familiarity with literature. He feels
+perhaps like the late Charles Frohman who, on being asked if he read the
+dramatic papers said: "Why should I read about the theatre. I _make_
+dramatic history."
+
+I asked Smuts what he was reading at the moment. He looked at me with
+some astonishment and answered, "Nothing except public documents. It's a
+good thing that I was able to do some reading before I became Prime
+Minister. I certainly have no time now."
+
+Take the matter of languages. Lloyd George has always professed that he
+did not know French, and on all his trips to France both during and
+since the war he carried a staff of interpreters. He understands a good
+deal more French than he professes. His widely proclaimed ignorance of
+the language has stood him in good stead because it has enabled him to
+hear a great many things that were not intended for his ears. It is part
+of his political astuteness. Smuts is an accomplished linguist. It has
+been said of him that he "can be silent in more languages than any man
+in South Africa."
+
+Lloyd George is a clever politician with occasional inspired moments but
+he is not exactly a statesman as Disraeli and Gladstone were. Smuts has
+the unusual combination of statesmanship with a knowledge of every
+wrinkle in the political game.
+
+Take his experience at the Paris Peace Conference. He was distinguished
+not so much for what he did, (and that was considerable), but for what
+he opposed. No man was better qualified to voice the sentiment of the
+"small nation." Born of proud and liberty-loving people,--an infant
+among the giants--he was attuned to every aspiration of an hour that
+realized many a one-time forlorn national hope. Yet his statesmanship
+tempered sentimental impulse.
+
+In that gallery of treaty-makers Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and Wilson
+focussed the "fierce light" that beat about the proceedings. But it was
+Smuts, in the shadow, who contributed largely to the mental power-plant
+that drove the work. Lloyd George had to consider the chapter he wrote
+in the great instrument as something in the nature of a campaign
+document to be employed at home, while Clemenceau guided a steamroller
+that stooped for nothing but France. The more or less unsophisticated
+idealism of Woodrow Wilson foundered on these obstacles.
+
+Smuts, with his uncanny sense of prophecy, foretold the economic
+consequences of the peace. Looking ahead he visualized a surly and
+unrepentant Germany, unwilling to pay the price of folly; a bitter and
+disappointed Austria gasping for economic breath; an aroused and
+indignant Italy raging with revolt--all the chaos that spells "peace"
+today. He saw the Treaty as a new declaration of war instead of an
+antidote for discord. His judgment, sadly enough, has been confirmed. A
+deranged universe shot through with reaction and confusion, and with
+half a dozen wars sputtering on the horizon, is the answer. The sob and
+surge of tempest-born nations in the making are lost in the din of older
+ones threatened with decay and disintegration. It is not a pleasing
+spectacle.
+
+Smuts signed the Treaty but, as most people know, he filed a memorandum
+of protest and explanation. He believed the terms uneconomic and
+therefore unsound, but it was worth taking a chance on interpretation, a
+desperate venture perhaps, but anything to stop the blare and bicker of
+the council table and start the work of reconstruction.
+
+At Capetown he told me that for days he wrestled with the problem "to
+sign or not to sign." Finally, on the day before the Day of Days in the
+Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, he took a long solitary walk in the
+Champs Elysee, loveliest of Paris parades. Returning to his hotel he
+said to his secretary, Captain E. F. C. Lane, "I have decided to sign,
+but I will tell the reason why." He immediately sat down at his desk and
+in a handwriting noted for its illegibility wrote the famous
+memorandum.
+
+
+III
+
+What of the personal side of Smuts? While he is intensely human it is
+difficult to connect anecdote with him. I heard one at Capetown,
+however, that I do not think has seen the light of print. It reveals his
+methods, too.
+
+When the Germans ran amuck in 1914 Smuts was Minister of Defense of the
+Union of South Africa. The Nationalists immediately began to make life
+uncomfortable for him. Balked in their attempt to keep the Union out of
+the struggle they took another tack. After the Botha campaign in German
+South-West Africa was well under way, a member of the Opposition asked
+the Minister of Defense the following question in Parliament: "How much
+has South Africa paid for horses in the field and the Nationalists
+sought to make some political capital out of an expenditure that they
+remounts?" The Union forces employed thousands of called "waste."
+
+Smuts sent over to Army Headquarters to get the figures. He was told
+that it would take twenty clerks at least four weeks to compile the
+data.
+
+"Never mind," was his laconic comment. The next day happened to be
+Question Day in the House. As soon as the query about the remount charge
+came up Smuts calmly rose in his seat and replied:
+
+"It was exactly eight million one hundred and sixty-nine thousand
+pounds, ten shillings and sixpence." He then sat down without any
+further remark.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright by Harris & Ewing_
+
+GENERAL J. C. SMUTS]
+
+When one of his colleagues asked him where he got this information he
+said:
+
+"I dug it out of my own mind. It will take the Nationalists a month to
+figure it out and by that time they will have forgotten all about it."
+And it was forgotten.
+
+Smuts not only has a keen sense of humor but is swift on the retort.
+While speaking at a party rally in his district not many years after the
+Boer War he was continually interrupted by an ex-soldier. He stopped his
+speech and asked the man to state his grievance. The heckler said:
+
+"General de la Rey guaranteed the men fighting under him a living."
+
+Quick as a flash Smuts replied:
+
+"Nonsense. What he guaranteed you was certain death."
+
+Like many men conspicuous in public life Smuts gets up early and has
+polished off a good day's work before the average business man has
+settled down to his job. There is a big difference between his methods
+of work and those of Lloyd George. The British Prime Minister only goes
+to the House of Commons when he has to make a speech or when some
+important question is up for discussion. Smuts attends practically every
+session of Parliament, at least he did while I was in Capetown.
+
+One reason was that on account of the extraordinary position in which he
+found himself, any moment might have produced a division carrying with
+it disastrous results for the Government. The crisis demanded that he
+remain literally on the job all the time. He left little to his
+lieutenants. Confident of his ability in debate he was always willing to
+risk a showdown but he had to be there when it came.
+
+I watched him as he sat in the House. He occupied a front bench directly
+opposite Hertzog and where he could look his arch enemy squarely in the
+eyes all the time. I have seen him sit like a Sphinx for an hour without
+apparently moving a muscle. He has cultivated that rarest of arts which
+is to be a good listener. He is one of the great concentrators. In this
+genius, for it is little less, lies one of the secrets of his success.
+During a lull in legislative proceedings he has a habit of taking a
+solitary walk out in the lobby. More than once I saw him pacing up and
+down, always with an ear cocked toward the Assembly Room so he could
+hear what was going on and rush to the rescue if necessary.
+
+In the afternoon he would sometimes go into the members' smoking room
+and drink a cup of coffee, the popular drink in South Africa. In the old
+Boer household the coffee pot is constantly boiling. With a cup of
+coffee and a piece of "biltong" inside him a Boer could fight or trek
+all day. Coffee bears the same relation to the South African that tea
+does to the Englishman, save that it is consumed in much larger
+quantities. I might add that Smuts neither drinks liquor of any kind nor
+smokes, and he eats sparingly. He admits that his one dissipation is
+farming.
+
+This comes naturally because he was born fifty years ago on a farm in
+what is known as the Western Province in the Karoo country. He did his
+share of the chores about the place until it was time for him to go to
+school. His father and his grandfather were farmers. Inbred in him, as
+in most Boers, is an ardent love of country life and especially an
+affection for the mountains. On more than one occasion he has climbed to
+the top of Table Mountain, which is no inconsiderable feat.
+
+There are two ways of appraising Smuts. One is to see him in action as
+I did at Capetown, while Parliament was in session. The other is to get
+him with the background of his farm at Irene, a little way station about
+ten miles from Pretoria. Here, in a rambling one-story house surrounded
+by orchards, pastures, and gardens, he lives the simple life. In the
+western part of the Transvaal he owns a real farm. He showed his
+shrewdness in the acquisition of this property because he bought it at a
+time when the region was dubbed a "desert." Now it is a garden spot.
+
+Irene has various distinct advantages. For one thing it is his permanent
+home. _Groote Schuur_ is the property of the Government and he owes his
+tenancy of it entirely to the fortunes of politics. At Irene is planted
+his hearthstone and around it is mobilized his considerable family.
+There are six little Smutses. Smuts married the sweetheart of his youth
+who is a rarely congenial helpmate. It was once said of her that she
+"went about the house with a baby under one arm and a Greek dictionary
+under the other."
+
+Most people do not realize that the Union of South Africa has two
+capitals. Capetown with the House of Parliament is the center of
+legislation, while Pretoria, the ancient Kruger stronghold, with its
+magnificent new Union buildings atop a commanding eminence, is the
+fountain-head of administration. With Irene only ten miles away it is
+easy for Smuts to live with his family after the adjournment of
+Parliament, and go in to his office at Pretoria every day.
+
+I have already given you a hint of the Smuts personal appearance. Let us
+now take a good look at him. His forehead is lofty, his nose arched, his
+mouth large. You know that his blonde beard veils a strong jaw. The eyes
+are reminiscent of those marvelous orbs of Marshal Foch only they are
+blue, haunting and at times inexorable. Yet they can light up with humor
+and glow with friendliness.
+
+Smuts is essentially an out-of-doors person and his body is wiry and
+rangy. He has the stride of a man seasoned to the long march and who is
+equally at home in the saddle. He speaks with vigour and at times not
+without emotion. The Boer is not a particularly demonstrative person and
+Smuts has some of the racial reserve. His personality betokens potential
+strength,--a suggestion of the unplumbed reserve that keeps people
+guessing. This applies to his mental as well as his physical capacity.
+Frankly cordial, he resents familiarity. You would never think of
+slapping him on the shoulder and saying, "Hello, Jan." More than one
+blithe and buoyant person has been frozen into respectful silence in
+such a foolhardy undertaking.
+
+His middle name is Christian and it does not belie a strong phase of his
+character. Without carrying his religious convictions on his
+coat-sleeve, he has nevertheless a fine spiritual strain in his make-up.
+He is an all-round dependable person, with an adaptability to
+environment that is little short of amazing.
+
+
+IV
+
+Now let us turn to another and less conspicuous South African whose
+point of view, imperial, personal and patriotic, is the exact opposite
+of that of Smuts. Throughout this chapter has run the strain of Hertzog,
+first the Boer General fighting gallantly in the field with Smuts as
+youthful comrade; then the member of the Botha Cabinet; later the bitter
+insurgent, and now the implacable foe of the order that he helped to
+establish. What manner of man is he and what has he to say?
+
+I talked to him one afternoon when he left the floor leadership to his
+chief lieutenant, a son of the late President Steyn of the Orange Free
+State. Like his father, who called himself "President" to the end of his
+life although his little republic had slipped away from him, he has
+never really yielded to English rule.
+
+We adjourned to the smoking room where we had the inevitable cup of
+South African coffee. I was prepared to find a fanatic and fire-eater.
+Instead I faced a thin, undersized man who looked anything but a general
+and statesman. Put him against the background of a small New England
+town and you would take him for an American country lawyer. He resembles
+the student more than the soldier and, like many Boers, speaks English
+with a British accent. Nor is he without force. No man can play the role
+that he has played in South Africa those past twenty-five years without
+having substance in him.
+
+When I asked him to state his case he said:
+
+"The republican idea is as old as South Africa. There was a republic
+before the British arrived. The idea came from the American Revolution
+and the inspiration was Washington. The Great Trek of 1836 was a protest
+very much like the one we are making today.
+
+"President Wilson articulated the Boer feeling with his gospel of
+self-determination. He also voiced the aspirations of Ireland, India and
+Egypt. It is a great world idea--a deep moral conviction of mankind,
+this right of the individual state, as of the individual for freedom.
+
+"Never again will Transvaal and Orange Free State history be repeated.
+No matter how a nation covets another--and I refer to British
+covetousness,--if the nation coveted is able to govern itself it cannot
+and must not be assimilated. It is one result of the Great War."
+
+"What is the Nationalist ideal?" I asked.
+
+"It is the right to self-rule," replied Hertzog. "But there must be no
+conflict if it can be avoided. It must prevail by reason and education.
+At the present time I admit that the majority of South Africans do not
+want republicanism. The Nationalist mission today is to keep the torch
+lighted."
+
+"How does this idea fit into the spirit of the League of Nations?" I
+queried.
+
+"It fits in perfectly," was the response. "We Nationalists favor the
+League as outlined by Wilson. But I fear that it will develop into a
+capitalistic, imperialistic empire dominating the world instead of a
+league of nations."
+
+I asked Hertzog how he reconciled acquiescence to Union to the present
+Nationalist revolt. The answer was:
+
+"The Nationalists supported the Government because of their attachment
+to General Botha. Deep down in his heart Botha wanted to be free and
+independent."
+
+"How about Ireland?" I demanded.
+
+The General smiled as he responded: "Our position is different. It does
+not require dynamite, but education. With us it is a simple matter of
+the will of the people. I do not think that conditions in South Africa
+will ever reach the state at which they have arrived in Ireland."
+
+Commenting on the Union and its relations to the British Empire Hertzog
+continued:
+
+"The Union is not a failure but we could be better governed. The thing
+to which we take exception is that the British Government, through our
+connection with it, is in a position by which it gets an undue advantage
+directly and indirectly to influence legislation. For example, we were
+not asked to conquer German South-West Africa; it was a command.
+
+"Very much against the feeling of the old population, that is the Dutch
+element, we were led into participation in the war. Today this old
+population feels as strongly as ever against South Africa being involved
+in European politics. It feels that all this Empire movement only leads
+in that direction and involves us in world conflicts.
+
+"One of the strongest reasons in favor of separation and the setting up
+of a South African republic is to get solidarity between the English and
+the Dutch. I cannot help feeling that our interests are being constantly
+subordinated to those of Great Britain. My firm conviction is that the
+freer we are, and the more independent of Great Britain we become, the
+more we shall favor a close co-operation with her. We do not dislike the
+British as such but we do object to the Britisher coming out as a
+subject of Great Britain with a superior manner and looking upon the
+Dutchman as a dependent or a subordinate. There will be a conflict so
+long as they do not recognize our heroes, traditions and history. In
+short, we are determined to have a republic of South Africa and England
+must recognize it. To oppose it is fatal."
+
+"Will you fight for it?" I asked.
+
+"I hardly think that it will come to force," said the General. "It must
+prevail by reason and education. It may not come in one year but it will
+come before many years."
+
+Hertzog's feeling is not shared, as he intimated, by the majority of
+South Africans and this includes many Dutchmen. An illuminating analysis
+of the Nationalist point of view was made for me by Sir Thomas Smartt,
+the leader of the Unionist Party and a virile force in South African
+politics. He brought the situation strikingly home to America when he
+said:
+
+"The whole Nationalist movement is founded on race. Like the Old Guard,
+the Boer may die but it is hard for him to surrender. His heart still
+rankles with the outcome of the Boer War. Would the American South have
+responded to an appeal to arms in the common cause made by the North in
+1876? Probably not. Before your Civil War the South only had individual
+states. The Boers, on the other hand, had republics with completely
+organized and independent governments. This is why it will take a long
+time before complete assimilation is accomplished. A second Boer War is
+unthinkable."
+
+We can now return to Smuts and find out just how he achieved the miracle
+by which he not only retained the Premiership but spiked the guns of the
+opposition.
+
+When I left Capetown he was in a corner. The Nationalist majority not
+only made his position precarious but menaced the integrity of Union,
+and through Union, the whole Empire. For five months,--the whole session
+of Parliament,--he held his ground. Every night when he went to bed at
+_Groote Schuur_ he did not know what disaster the morrow would bring
+forth. It was a constant juggle with conflicting interests, ambitions
+and prejudices. He was like a lion with a pack snapping on all sides.
+
+Now you can see why he sat in that front seat in the House morning, noon
+and night. He placated the Labourites, harmonized the Unionists, and
+flung down the gauntlet openly to the Nationalists. Throughout that
+historic session, and although much legislation was accomplished, he did
+not permit the consummation of a single decisive division. It was a
+triumph of parliamentary leadership.
+
+When the session closed in July,--it is then mid-winter in Africa,--he
+was still up against it. The Nationalist majority was a phantom that
+dogged his official life and political fortunes. The problem now was to
+take out sane insurance against a repetition of the trial and
+uncertainty which he had undergone.
+
+Fate in the shape of the Nationalist Party played into his hands. Under
+the stimulation of the Nationalists a _Vereeniging_ Congress was called
+at Bloenfontein late last September. The Dutch word _Vereeniging_ means
+"reunion." Hertzog and Tielman Roos, the co-leader of the
+secessionists, believed that by bringing the leading representatives of
+the two leading parties together the appeal to racial pride might carry
+the day. Smuts did not attend but various members of his Cabinet did.
+
+Reunion did anything but reunite. The differences on the republican
+issues being fundamental were likewise irreconcilable. The Nationalists
+stood pat on secession while the South African Party remained loyal to
+its principles of Imperial unity. The meeting ended in a deadlock.
+
+Smuts, a field marshal of politics, at once saw that the hour of
+deliverance from his dilemma had arrived. The Nationalists had declared
+themselves unalterably for separation. He converted their battle-cry
+into coin for himself. He seized the moment to issue a call for a new
+Moderate Party that would represent a fusion of the South Africanists
+and the Unionists. In one of his finest documents he made a plea for the
+consolidation of these constructive elements.
+
+In it he said:
+
+    Now that the Nationalist Party is firmly resolved to continue its
+    propaganda of fanning the fires of secession and of driving the
+    European races apart from each other and ultimately into conflict
+    with each other, the moderate elements of our population have no
+    other alternative but to draw closer to one another in order to
+    fight that policy.
+
+    A new appeal must, therefore, be made to all right-minded South
+    Africans, irrespective of party or race, to join the new Party,
+    which will be strong enough to safeguard the permanent interests of
+    the Union against the disruptive and destructive policy of the
+    Nationalists. Such a central political party will not only continue
+    our great work of the past, but is destined to play a weighty role
+    in the future peaceable development of South Africa.
+
+The end of October witnessed the ratification of this proposal by the
+Unionists. The action at once consolidated the Premier's position. I
+doubt if in all political history you can uncover a series of events
+more paradoxical or perplexing or find a solution arrived at with
+greater skill and strategy. It was a revelation of Smuts with his ripe
+statesmanship put to the test, and not found wanting.
+
+At the election held four months later Smuts scored a brilliant triumph.
+The South African Party increased its representation by eighteen seats,
+while the Nationalists lost heavily. The Labour Party was almost lost in
+the wreckage. The net result was that the Premier obtained a working
+majority of twenty-two, which guarantees a stable and loyal Government
+for at least five years.
+
+It only remains to speculate on what the future holds for this
+remarkable man. South Africa has a tragic habit of prematurely
+destroying its big men. Rhodes was broken on the wheel at forty-nine,
+and Botha succumbed in the prime of life. Will Smuts share the same
+fate?
+
+No one need be told in the face of the Smuts performance that he is a
+world asset. The question is, how far will he go? A Cabinet Minister at
+twenty-eight, a General at thirty, a factor in international affairs
+before he was well into the forties, he unites those rare elements of
+greatness which seem to be so sparsely apportioned these disturbing
+days. That he will reconstruct South Africa there is no doubt. What
+larger responsibilities may devolve upon him can only be guessed.
+
+Just before I sailed from England I talked with a high-placed British
+official. He is in the councils of Empire and he knows Smuts and South
+Africa. I asked him to indicate what in his opinion would be the next
+great milepost of Smuts' progress. He replied:
+
+"The destiny of Smuts is interwoven with the destiny of the whole
+British Empire. The Great War bound the Colonies together with bonds of
+blood. Out of this common peril and sacrifice has been knit a closer
+Imperial kinship. During the war we had an Imperial War Cabinet composed
+of overseas Premiers, which sat in London. Its logical successor will be
+a United British Empire, federated in policy but not in administration.
+Smuts will be the Prime Minister of these United States of Great
+Britain."
+
+It is the high goal of a high career.
+
+[Illustration: THE HEAVY LINE INDICATES MR. MARCOSSON'S ROUTE IN
+AFRICA]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II--"CAPE-TO-CAIRO"
+
+
+I
+
+When you take the train for the North at Capetown you start on the first
+lap of what is in many respects the most picturesque journey in the
+world. Other railways tunnel mighty mountains, cross seething rivers,
+traverse scorching deserts, and invade the clouds, but none has so
+romantic an interest or is bound up with such adventure and imagination
+as this. The reason is that at Capetown begins the southern end of the
+famous seven-thousand-mile Cape-to-Cairo Route, one of the greatest
+dreams of England's prince of practical dreamers, Cecil Rhodes. Today,
+after thirty years of conflict with grudging Governments, the project is
+practically an accomplished fact.
+
+Woven into its fabric is the story of a German conspiracy that was as
+definite a cause of the Great War as the Balkan mess or any other phase
+of Teutonic international meddling. Along its highway the American
+mining engineer has registered a little known evidence of his
+achievement abroad. The route taps civilization and crosses the last
+frontiers of progress. The South African end discloses an illuminating
+example of profitable nationalization. Over it still broods the
+personality of the man who conceived it and who left his impress and his
+name on an empire. Attention has been directed anew to the enterprise
+from the fact that shortly before I reached Africa two aviators flew
+from Cairo to the Cape and their actual flying time was exactly
+sixty-eight hours.
+
+The unbroken iron spine that was to link North and South Africa and
+which Rhodes beheld in his vision of the future, will probably not be
+built for some years. Traffic in Central Africa at the moment does not
+justify it. Besides, the navigable rivers in the Belgian Congo, Egypt,
+and the Soudan lend themselves to the rail and water route which, with
+one short overland gap, now enables you to travel the whole way from
+Cape to Cairo.
+
+The very inception of the Cape-to-Cairo project gives you a glimpse of
+the working of the Rhodes mind. He left the carrying out of details to
+subordinates. When he looked at the map of Africa,--and he was forever
+studying maps,--and ran that historic line through it from end to end
+and said, "It must be all red," he took no cognizance of the
+extraordinary difficulties that lay in the way. He saw, but he did not
+heed, the rainbow of many national flags that spanned the continent. A
+little thing like millions of square miles of jungle, successions of
+great lakes, or wild and primitive regions peopled with cannibals, meant
+nothing. Money and energy were to him merely means to an end.
+
+When General "Chinese" Gordon, for example, told him that he had refused
+a roomful of silver for his services in exterminating the Mongolian
+bandits Rhodes looked at him in surprise and said: "Why didn't you take
+it? What is the earthly use of having ideas if you haven't the money
+with which to carry them out?" Here you have the keynote of the whole
+Rhodes business policy. A project had to be carried through regardless
+of expense. It applied to the Cape-to-Cairo dream just as it applied to
+every other enterprise with which he was associated.
+
+The all-rail route would cost billions upon billions, although now that
+German prestige in Africa is ended it would not be a physical and
+political impossibility. A modification of the original plan into a
+combination rail and river scheme permits the consummation of the vision
+of thirty years ago. The southern end is all-rail mainly because the
+Union of South Africa and Rhodesia are civilized and prosperous
+countries. I made the entire journey by train from Capetown to the
+rail-head at Bukama in the Belgian Congo, a distance of 2,700 miles, the
+longest continuous link in the whole scheme. This trip can be made, if
+desirable, in a through car in about nine days.
+
+I then continued northward, down the Lualaba River,--Livingstone thought
+it was the Nile--then by rail, and again on the Lualaba through the
+posts of Kongolo, Kindu and Ponthierville to Stanleyville on the Congo
+River. This is the second stage of the Cape-to-Cairo Route and knocks
+off an additional 890 miles and another twelve days. Here I left the
+highway to Egypt and went down the Congo and my actual contact with the
+famous line ended. I could have gone on, however, and reached Cairo,
+with luck, in less than eight weeks.
+
+From Stanleyville you go to Mahagi, which is on the border between the
+Congo and Uganda. This is the only overland gap in the whole route. It
+covers roughly,--and the name is no misnomer I am told,--680 miles
+through the jungle and skirts the principal Congo gold fields. A road
+has been built and motor cars are available. The railway route from
+Stanleyville to Mahagi, which will link the Congo and the Nile, is
+surveyed and would have been finished by this time but for the outbreak
+of the Great War. The Belgian Minister of the Colonies, with whom I
+travelled in the Congo assured me that his Government would commence the
+construction within the next two years, thus enabling the traveller to
+forego any hiking on the long journey.
+
+Mahagi is on the western side of Lake Albert and is destined to be the
+lake terminus of the projected Congo-Nile Railway which will be an
+extension of the Soudan Railways. Here you begin the journey that
+enlists both railways and steamers and which gives practically a
+straight ahead itinerary to Cairo. You journey on the Nile by way of
+Rejaf, Kodok,--(the Fashoda that was)--to Kosti, where you reach the
+southern rail-head of the Soudan Railways. Thence it is comparatively
+easy, as most travellers know, to push on through Khartum, Berber, Wady
+Halfa and Assuan to the Egyptian capital. The distance from Mahagi to
+Cairo is something like 2,700 miles while the total mileage from
+Capetown to Cairo, along the line that I have indicated, is 7,000 miles.
+
+This, in brief, is the way you make the trip that Rhodes dreamed about,
+but not the way he planned it. There are various suggestions for
+alternate routes after you reach Bukama or, to be more exact, after you
+start down the first stage of the journey on the Lualaba. At Kabalo,
+where I stopped, a railroad runs eastward from the river to Albertville,
+on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Rhodes wanted to use the 400-mile
+waterway that this body of water provides to connect the railway that
+came down from the North with the line that begins at the Cape. The idea
+was to employ train ferries. King Leopold of Belgium granted Rhodes the
+right to do this but Germany frustrated the scheme by refusing to
+recognize the cession of the strip of Congo territory between Lake
+Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, which was an essential link.
+
+This incident is one evidence of the many attempts that the Germans made
+to block the Cape-to-Cairo project. Germany knew that if Rhodes, and
+through Rhodes the British Empire, could establish through communication
+under the British flag, from one end of Africa to the other, it would
+put a crimp into the Teutonic scheme to dominate the whole continent.
+She went to every extreme to interfere with its advance.
+
+This German opposition provided a reason why the consummation of the
+project was so long delayed. Another was, that except for the explorer
+and the big game hunter, there was no particular provocation for moving
+about in certain portions of Central Africa until recently. But Germany
+only afforded one obstacle. The British Government, after the fashion of
+governments, turned a cold shoulder to the enterprise. History was only
+repeating itself. If Disraeli had consulted his colleagues England would
+never have acquired the Suez Canal. So it goes.
+
+Most of the Rhodesian links of the Cape-to-Cairo Route were built by
+Rhodes and the British South Africa Company, while the line from Broken
+Hill to the Congo border was due entirely to the courage and tenacity of
+Robert Williams, who is now constructing the so-called Benguella Railway
+from Lobito Bay in Portuguese Angola to Bukama. It will be a feeder to
+the Cape-to-Cairo road and constitute a sort of back door to Egypt. It
+will also provide a shorter outlet to Europe for the copper in the
+Katanga district of the Congo.
+
+When you see equatorial Africa and more especially that part which lies
+between the rail-head at Bukama and Mahagi, you understand why the
+all-rail route is not profitable at the moment. It is for the most part
+an uncultivated area principally jungle, with scattered white
+settlements and hordes of untrained natives. The war set back the
+development of the Congo many years. Now that the world is beginning to
+understand the possibilities of Central Africa for palm oil, cotton,
+rubber, and coffee, the traffic to justify the connecting railways will
+eventually come.
+
+
+II
+
+Shortly after my return from Africa I was talking with a well-known
+American business man who, after making the usual inquiries about lions,
+cannibals and hair-breadth escapes, asked: "Is it dangerous to go about
+in South Africa?" When I assured him that both my pocket-book and I were
+safer there than on Broadway in New York or State Street in Chicago, he
+was surprised. Yet his question is typical of a widespread ignorance
+about all Africa and even its most developed area.
+
+What people generally do not understand is that the lower part of that
+one-time Dark Continent is one of the most prosperous regions in the
+world, where the home currency is at a premium instead of a discount;
+where the high cost of living remains a stranger and where you get
+little suggestion of the commercial rack and ruin that are disturbing
+the rest of the universe. While the war-ravaged nations and their
+neighbors are feeling their dubious way towards economic reconstruction,
+the Union of South Africa is on the wave of a striking expansion. It
+affords an impressive contrast to the demoralized productivity of Europe
+and for that matter the United States.
+
+South Africa presents many economic features of distinct and unique
+interest. A glance at its steam transportation discloses rich material.
+Fundamentally the railroads of any country are the real measures of its
+progress. In Africa particularly they are the mileposts of
+civilization. In 1876 there were only 400 miles on the whole continent.
+Today there are over 30,000 miles. Of this network of rails exactly
+11,478 miles are in the Union of South Africa and they comprise the
+second largest mileage in the world under one management.
+
+More than this, they are Government owned and operated. Despite this
+usual handicap they pay. No particular love of Government
+control,--which is invariably an invitation for political influence to
+do its worst,--animated the development of these railways. As in
+Australia, where private capital refused to build, it was a case of
+necessity. In South Africa there was practically no private enterprise
+to sidestep the obligation that the need of adequate transportation
+imposed. The country was new, hostile savages still swarmed the
+frontiers, and the white man had to battle with Zulu and Kaffir for
+every area he opened. In the absence of navigable rivers--there are none
+in the Union--the steel rail had to do the pioneering. Besides, the
+Boers had a strong prejudice against the railroads and regarded the iron
+horse as a menace to their isolation.
+
+The first steam road on the continent of Africa was constructed by
+private enterprise from the suburb of Durban in Natal into the town. It
+was a mile and three-quarters in length and was opened for traffic in
+1860. Railway construction in the Cape Colony began about the same time.
+The Government ownership of the lines was inaugurated in 1873 and it has
+continued without interruption ever since. The real epoch of railway
+building in South Africa started with the great mineral discoveries.
+First came the uncovering of diamonds along the Orange River and the
+opening up of the Kimberley region, which added nearly 2,000 miles of
+railway. With the finding of gold in the Rand on what became the site
+of Johannesburg, another 1,500 miles were added.
+
+Since most nationalized railways do not pay it is interesting to take a
+look at the African balance sheet. Almost without exception the South
+African railways have been operated at a considerable net profit. These
+profits some years have been as high as L2,590,917. During the
+war, when there was a natural slump in traffic and when all soldiers and
+Government supplies were carried free of cost, they aggregated in 1915,
+for instance, L749,125.
+
+One fiscal feature of these South African railroads is worth
+emphasizing. Under the act of Union "all profits, after providing for
+interest, depreciation and betterment, shall be utilized in the
+reduction of tariffs, due regard being had to the agricultural and
+industrial development within the Union and the promotion by means of
+cheap transport of the settlement of an agricultural population in the
+inland portions of the Union." The result is that the rates on
+agricultural products, low-grade ores, and certain raw materials are
+possibly the lowest in the world. In other countries rates had to be
+increased during the war but in South Africa no change was made, so as
+not to interfere with the agricultural, mineral and industrial
+development of the country.
+
+Nor is the Union behind in up-to-date transportation. A big program for
+electrification has been blocked out and a section is under conversion.
+Some of the power generated will be sold to the small manufacturer and
+thus production will be increased.
+
+Stimulating the railway system of South Africa is a single personality
+which resembles the self-made American wizard of transportation more
+than any other Britisher that I have met with the possible exception of
+Sir Eric Geddes, at present Minister of Transport of Great Britain and
+who left his impress on England's conduct of the war. He is Sir William
+W. Hoy, whose official title is General Manager of the South African
+Railways and Ports. Big, vigorous, and forward-looking, he sits in a
+small office in the Railway Station at Capetown, with his finger
+literally on the pulse of nearly 12,000 miles of traffic. During the war
+Walker D. Hines, as Director General of the American Railways, was
+steward of a vaster network of rails but his job was an emergency one
+and terminated when that emergency subsided. Sir William Hoy, on the
+other hand, is set to a task which is not equalled in extent, scope or
+responsibility by any other similar official.
+
+Like James J. Hill and Daniel Willard he rose from the ranks. At
+Capetown he told me of his great admiration for American railways and
+their influence in the system he dominates. Among other things he said:
+"We are taking our whole cue for electrification from the railroads of
+your country and more especially the admirable precedent established by
+the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. I believe firmly in wide
+electrification of present-day steam transport. The great practical
+advantages are more uniform speed and the elimination of stops to take
+water. It also affords improved acceleration, greater reliability as to
+timing, especially on heavy grades, and stricter adherence to schedule.
+There are enormous advantages to single lines like ours in South Africa.
+Likewise, crossings and train movements can be arranged with greater
+accuracy, thereby reducing delays. Perhaps the greatest saving is in
+haulage, that is, in the employment of the heavy electric locomotive. It
+all tends toward a denser traffic.
+
+"Behind this whole process of electrification lies the need, created by
+the Great War, for coal conservation and for a motive power that will
+speed up production of all kinds. We have abundant coal in the Union of
+South Africa and by consuming less of it on our railways we will be in a
+stronger position to export it and thus strengthen our international
+position and keep the value of our money up."
+
+Since Sir William has touched upon the coal supply we at once get a
+link,--and a typical one--with the ramified resource of the Union of
+South Africa. No product, not even those precious stones that lie in the
+bosom of Kimberley, or the glittering golden ore imbedded in the Rand,
+has a larger political or economic significance just now. Nor does any
+commodity figure quite so prominently in the march of world events.
+
+In peace, as in war, coal spells life and power. It was the cudgel that
+the one-time proud and arrogant Germany held menacingly over the head of
+the unhappy neutral, and extorted special privilege. At the moment I
+write, coal is the storm center of controversy that ranges from the Ruhr
+Valley of Germany to the Welsh fields of Britain and affects the
+destinies of statesmen and of countries. We are not without fuel
+troubles, as our empty bins indicate. The nation, therefore, with cheap
+and abundant coal has a bargaining asset that insures industrial peace
+at home and trade prestige abroad.
+
+South Africa not only has a low-priced and ample coal supply but it is
+in a convenient point for distribution to the whole Southern
+hemisphere,--in fact Europe and other sections. On past production the
+Union ranked only eleventh in a list of coal-producing countries, the
+output being about 8,000,000 tons a year before the war and something
+over 10,000,000 tons in 1919. This output, however, is no guide to the
+magnitude of its fields. Until comparatively recent times they have been
+little exploited, not because of inferiority but because of the
+restricted output prior to the new movement to develop a bunker and
+export trade. Without an adequate geological survey the investigations
+made during the last twelve months indicate a potential supply of over
+60,000,000 tons and immense areas have not been touched at all.
+
+The war changed the whole coal situation. Labour conflicts have reduced
+the British output; a huge part of Germany's supply must go to France as
+an indemnity, while our own fields are sadly under-worked, for a variety
+of causes. All these conditions operate in favor of the South African
+field, which is becoming increasingly important as a source of supply.
+
+Despite her advantage the prices remain astonishingly low, when you
+compare them with those prevailing elsewhere. English coal, which in
+1912 cost about nine shillings a ton at pithead, costs considerably more
+than thirty shillings today. The average pithead price of South African
+coal in 1915 was five shillings twopence a ton and at the time of my
+visit to South Africa in 1919 was still under seven shillings a ton.
+Capetown and Durban, the two principal harbours of the Union, are
+coaling stations of Empire importance. There you can see the flags of a
+dozen nations flying from ships that have put in for fuel. Thanks to the
+war these ports are in the center of the world's great trade routes and
+thus, geographically and economically their position is unique for
+bunkering and for export.
+
+The price of bunker coal is a key to the increased overhead cost of
+world trade, as a result of the war. The Belgian boat on which I
+travelled from the shores of the Congo to Antwerp coaled at Teneriffe,
+where the price per ton was seven pounds. It is interesting to compare
+this with the bunker price at Capetown of a little more than two pounds
+per ton, or at Durban where the rate is one pound ten shillings a ton.
+In the face of these figures you can readily see what an economic
+advantage is accruing to the Union of South Africa with reference to the
+whole vexing question of coal supply.
+
+We can now go into the larger matter of South Africa's business
+situation in the light of peace and world reconstruction. I have already
+shown how the war, and the social and industrial upheaval that followed
+in its wake have enlarged and fortified the coal situation in the Union.
+Practically all other interests are similarly affected. The outstanding
+factor in the prosperity of the Union has been the development of
+war-born self-sufficiency. I used to think during the conflict that
+shook the world, that this gospel of self-containment would be one of
+the compensations that Britain would gain for the years of blood and
+slaughter. So far as Britain is concerned this hope has not been
+realized. When I was last in England huge quantities of German dyes were
+being dumped on her shores to the loss and dismay of a new coal-tar
+industry that had been developed during the war. German wares like toys
+and novelties were now pouring in. And yet England wondered why her
+exchange was down!
+
+In South Africa the situation has been entirely different. She alone of
+all the British dominions is asserting an almost pugnacious
+self-sufficiency. Cut off from outside supplies for over four years by
+the relentless submarine warfare, and the additional fact that nearly
+all the ships to and from the Cape had to carry war supplies or
+essential products, she was forced to develop her internal resources.
+The consequence is an expansion of agriculture, industry and
+manufactures. Instead of being as she was often called, "a country of
+samples," she has become a domain of active production, as is attested
+by an industrial output valued at L62,000,000 in 1918. Before the
+war the British and American manufacturer,--and there is a considerable
+market for American goods in the Cape Colony,--could undersell the South
+African article. That condition is changed and the home-made article
+produced with much cheaper labour than obtains either in Europe or the
+United States, has the field.
+
+Let me emphasize another striking fact in connection with this South
+African prosperity. During the war I had occasion to observe at
+first-hand the economic conditions in every neutral country in Europe. I
+was deeply impressed with the prosperity of Sweden, Spain and
+Switzerland, and to a lesser extent Holland, who made hay while their
+neighbors reaped the tares of war. Japan did likewise. These nations
+were largely profiteers who capitalized a colossal misfortune. They got
+much of the benefit and little of the horror of the upheaval.
+
+Not so with South Africa. She played an active part in the war and at
+the same time brought about a legitimate expansion of her resources. One
+point in her favor is that while she sent tens of thousands of her sons
+to fight, her own territory escaped the scar and ravage of battle. All
+the fighting in Africa, so far as the Union was concerned, was in German
+South-West Africa and German East Africa. After my years in
+tempest-tossed Europe it was a pleasant change to catch the buoyant,
+confident, unwearied spirit of South Africa.
+
+I have dwelt upon coal because it happens to be a significant economic
+asset. Coal is merely a phase of the South African resources. In 1919
+the Union produced L35,000,000 in gold and L7,200,000 in
+diamonds. The total mining production was, roughly, L50,000,000.
+This mining treasure is surpassed by the agricultural output, of which
+nearly one-third is exported. Land is the real measure of permanent
+wealth. The hoard of gold and diamonds in time becomes exhausted but the
+soil and its fruits go on forever.
+
+The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance.
+Nowhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do
+you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over
+combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the
+Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt.
+The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in
+Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and
+Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun.
+
+The crops are diversified. One of the staples of South Africa, for
+example, is the mealie, which is nothing more or less than our own
+American corn, but not quite so good. It provides the principal food of
+the natives and is eaten extensively by the European as well. On a dish
+of mealie porridge the Kaffir can keep the human machine going for
+twenty-four hours. Its prototype in the Congo is manice flour. In the
+Union nearly five million acres are under maize cultivation, which is
+exactly double the area in 1911. The value of the maize crop last year
+was approximately a million six hundred thousand pounds. Similar
+expansion has been the order in tobacco, wheat, fruit, sugar and half a
+dozen other products.
+
+South Africa is a huge cattle country. The Boers have always excelled in
+the care of live stock and it is particularly due to their efforts that
+the Union today has more than seven million head of cattle, which
+represents another hundred per cent increase in less than ten years.
+
+This matter of live stock leads me to one of the really picturesque
+industries of the Union which is the breeding of ostriches, "the birds
+with the golden feathers." Ask any man who raises these ungainly birds
+and he will tell you that with luck they are far better than the
+proverbial goose who laid the eighteen-karat eggs. The combination of
+F's--femininity, fashion and feathers--has been productive of many
+fortunes. The business is inclined to be fickle because it depends upon
+the female temperament. The ostrich feather, however, is always more or
+less in fashion. With the outbreak of the war there was a tremendous
+slump in feathers, which was keenly felt in South Africa. With peace,
+the plume again became the thing and the drooping industry expanded with
+get-rich-quick proportions.
+
+Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony is the center of the ostrich feather
+trade. It is the only place in the world, I believe, devoted entirely to
+plumage. Not long before I arrived in South Africa L85,000 of
+feathers were disposed of there in three days. It is no uncommon thing
+for a pound of prime plumes to fetch L100. The demand has become
+so keen that 350,000 ostriches in the Union can scarcely keep pace with
+it. Before the war there were more than 800,000 of these birds but the
+depression in feathers coupled with drought, flood and other causes,
+thinned out the ranks. It takes three years for an ostrich chick to
+become a feather producer.
+
+America has a considerable part in shaping the ostrich feather market.
+As with diamonds, we are the largest consumers. You can go to Port
+Elizabeth any day and find a group of Yankees industriously bidding
+against each other. On one occasion two New York buyers started a
+competition that led to an eleven weeks orgy that registered a total net
+sale of more than L100,000 of feathers. They are still talking
+about it down there.
+
+South Africa has not only expanded in output but her area is also
+enlarged. The Peace Conference gave her the mandate for German
+South-West Africa, which was the first section of the vanished Teutonic
+Empire in Africa. It occupies more than a quarter of the whole area of
+the continent south of the Zambesi River. While the word "mandate" as
+construed by the peace sharks at Paris is supposed to mean the amiable
+stewardship of a country, it really amounts to nothing more or less than
+an actual and benevolent assimilation. This assimilation is very much
+like the paternal interest that holding companies in the good old Wall
+Street days felt for small and competitive concerns. In other words, it
+is safe to assume that henceforth German South-West Africa will be a
+permanent part of the Union.
+
+The Colony's chief asset is comprised in the so-called German South-West
+African Diamond Fields, which, with the Congo Diamond Fields, provide a
+considerable portion of the small stones now on the market. These two
+fields are alike in that they are alluvial which means that the diamonds
+are easily gathered by a washing process. No shafts are sunk. It is
+precisely like gold washing.
+
+The German South-West mines have an American interest. In the
+reorganization following the conquest of German South-West Africa by the
+South African Army under General Botha the control had to become
+Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-American Corporation which has extensive
+interests in South Africa and which is financed by London and New York
+capitalists, the latter including J. P. Morgan, Charles H. Sabin and W.
+B. Thompson, acquired these fields. It is an interesting commentary on
+post-war business readjustment to discover that there is still a German
+interest in these mines. It makes one wonder if the German will ever be
+eradicated from his world-wide contact with every point of commercial
+activity.
+
+It is not surprising, therefore, that South Africa, in the light of all
+the facts that I have enumerated, should be prosperous. Take the money,
+always a test of national economic health. At Capetown I used the first
+golden sovereign that I had seen since early in 1914. This was not only
+because the Union happens to be a great gold-producing country but
+because she has an excess of exports over imports. Her money, despite
+its intimate relation with that of Great Britain, which has so sadly
+depreciated, is at a premium.
+
+I got expensive evidence of this when I went to the bank at Capetown to
+get some cash. I had a letter of credit in terms of English pounds. To
+my surprise, I only got seventeen shillings and sixpence in African
+money for every English pound, which is nominally worth twenty
+shillings. Six months after I left, this penalty had increased to three
+shillings. To such an extent has the proud English pound sterling
+declined and in a British dominion too!
+
+South Africa has put an embargo on the export of sovereigns. One reason
+was that during the first three years of the war a steady stream of
+these golden coins went surreptitiously to East India, where an
+unusually high premium for gold rules, especially in the bazaars. The
+goldsmiths find difficulty in getting material. The inevitable smuggling
+has resulted. In order to put a check on illicit removal, all passengers
+now leaving the Union are searched before they board their ships. Nor is
+it a half-hearted procedure. It is as drastic as the war-time scrutiny
+on frontiers.
+
+To sum up the whole business situation in the Union of South Africa is
+to find that the spirit of production,--the most sorely needed thing in
+the world today--is that of persistent advance. I dwell on this because
+it is in such sharp contrast with what is going on throughout the rest
+of a universe that staggers under sloth, and where the will-to-work has
+almost become a lost art. That older and more complacent order which is
+represented for example by France, Italy and England may well seek
+inspiration from this South African beehive.
+
+
+III
+
+With this economic setting for the whole South African picture and a
+visualization of the Cape-to-Cairo Route let us start on the long
+journey that eventually took me to the heart of equatorial Africa. The
+immediate objectives, so far as this chapter is concerned, are
+Kimberley, Johannesburg and Pretoria, names and towns that are
+synonymous with thrilling chapters in the development of Africa and more
+especially the Union.
+
+You depart from Capetown in the morning and for hours you remain in the
+friendly company of the mountains. Table Mountain has hovered over you
+during the whole stay at the capital and you regretfully watch this
+"Gray Father" fade away in the distance. In the evening you pass through
+the Hex River country where the canyon is reminiscent of Colorado. Soon
+there bursts upon you the famous Karoo country, so familiar to all
+readers of South African novels and more especially those of Olive
+Schreiner, Richard Dehan and Sir Percy Fitz Patrick. It is an almost
+treeless plain dotted here and there with Boer homesteads. Their
+isolation suggests battle with element and soil. The country immediately
+around Capetown is a paradise of fruit and flowers, but as you travel
+northward the whole character changes. There is less green and more
+brown. After the Karoo comes the equally famous veldt, studded with
+the _kopjes_ that became a part of the world vocabulary with the Boer
+War. Behind these low, long hills,--they suggest flat, rocky
+hummocks--the South African burghers made many a desperate stand against
+the English.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright by W. & D. Downey_
+
+CECIL RHODES]
+
+When you see the _kopjes_ you can readily understand why it took so long
+to conquer the Boers. The Dutch knew every inch of the land and every
+man was a crack shot from boyhood. In these hills a handful could hold a
+small army at bay. All through this region you encounter places that
+have become part of history. You pass the ruins of Kitchener's
+blockhouses,--they really ended the Boer War--and almost before you
+realize it, you cross the Modder River, where British military prestige
+got a bloody repulse. Instinctively there come to mind the struggles of
+Cronje, DeWet, Joubert, and the rest of those Boer leaders who made this
+region a small Valhalla.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the second day you suddenly get a "feel" of
+industry. The veldt becomes populated and before long huge smokestacks
+loom against the sky. You are at Kimberly. The average man associates
+this place with a famous siege in the Boer War and the equally famous
+diamond mines. But it is much more for it is packed with romance and
+reality. Here came Cecil Rhodes in his early manhood and pulled off the
+biggest business deal of his life; here you find the first milepost that
+the American mining engineer set up in the mineral development of
+Africa: here is produced in greater quantities than in any other place
+in the world the glittering jewel that vanity and avarice set their
+heart upon.
+
+Kimberley is one of the most unique of all the treasure cities. It is
+practically built on a diamond mine in the same way that Johannesburg
+rests upon a gold excavation. When the great diamond rush of the
+seventies overwhelmed the Vaal and Orange River regions, what is now the
+Kimberley section was a rocky plain with a few Boer farms. The influx of
+fortune-hunters dotted the area with tents and diggings. Today a
+thriving city covers it and the wealth produced--the diamond output is
+ninety per cent of the world supply--exceeds in value that of a big
+manufacturing community in the United States.
+
+At Kimberley you touch the intimate life of Rhodes. He arrived in 1872
+from Natal, where he had gone to retrieve his health on a farm. The
+moment he staked out a claim he began a remarkable career. In his early
+Kimberley days he did a characteristic thing. He left his claims each
+year to attend lectures at Oxford where he got his degree in 1881, after
+almost continuous commuting between England and Africa. Hence the Rhodes
+Scholarship at Oxford created by his remarkable will. History contains
+no more striking contrast perhaps than the spectacle of this tall
+curly-haired boy with the Caesar-like face studying a Greek book while
+he managed a diamond-washing machine with his foot.
+
+Rhodes developed the mines known as the DeBeers group. His great rival
+was Barney Barnato, who gave African finance the same erratic and
+picturesque tradition that the Pittsburgh millionaires brought to
+American finance. His real name was Barnett Isaacs. After kicking about
+the streets of the East End of London he became a music hall performer
+under the name by which he is known to business history. The diamond
+rush lured him to Kimberley, where he displayed the resource and
+ingenuity that led to his organization of the Central mine interests
+which grouped around the Kimberley Mine.
+
+A bitter competition developed between the Rhodes and Barnato groups.
+Kimberley alternated between boom and bankruptcy. The genius of diamond
+mining lies in tempering output to demand. Rhodes realized that
+indiscriminate production would ruin the market, so he framed up the
+deal that made him the diamond dictator. He made Barnato an offer which
+was refused. With the aid of the Rothschilds in London Rhodes secretly
+bought out the French interests in the Barnato holdings for $6,000,000,
+which got his foot, so to speak, in the doorway of the opposition. But
+even this did not give him a working wedge. He was angling with other
+big stockholders and required some weeks time to consummate the deal.
+Meanwhile Barnato accumulated an immense stock of diamonds which he
+threatened to dump on the market and demoralize the price. The release
+of these stones before the completion of Rhodes' negotiations would have
+upset his whole scheme and neutralized his work and expense.
+
+He arranged a meeting with Barnato who confronted him with the pile of
+diamonds that he was about to throw on the market. Rhodes, so the story
+goes, took him by the arm and said: "Barney, have you ever seen a
+bucketful of diamonds? I never have. I'll make a proposition to you. If
+these diamonds will fill a bucket, I'll take them all from you at your
+own price."
+
+Without giving his rival time to answer, Rhodes swept the glittering
+fortune into a bucket which happened to be standing nearby. It also
+happened that the stones did not fill it. This incident shows the extent
+of the Rhodes resource, for a man at Kimberly told me that Rhodes knew
+beforehand exactly how many diamonds Barnato had and got the right
+sized bucket. Rhodes immediately strode from the room, got the time he
+wanted and consummated the consolidation which made the name DeBeers
+synonymous with the diamond output of the world. One trifling feature of
+this deal was the check for $26,000,000 which Rhodes gave for some of
+the Barnato interests acquired.
+
+The deal with Barnato illustrated the practical operation of one of the
+rules which guided Rhodes' business life. He once said, "Never fight
+with a man if you can deal with him." He lived up to this maxim even
+with the savage Matabeles from whom he wrested Rhodesia.
+
+Not long after the organization of the diamond trust Rhodes gave another
+evidence of his business acumen. He saw that the disorganized marketing
+of the output would lead to instability of price. He therefore formed
+the Diamond Syndicate in London, composed of a small group of middlemen
+who distribute the whole Kimberley output. In this way the available
+supply is measured solely by the demand.
+
+Rhodes had a peculiar affection for Kimberley. One reason perhaps was
+that it represented the cornerstone of his fortune. He always referred
+to the mines as his "bread and cheese." He made and lost vast sums
+elsewhere and scattered his money about with a lavish hand. The diamond
+mines did not belie their name and gave him a constant meal-ticket.
+
+In Kimberley he made some of the friendships that influenced his life.
+First and foremost among them was his association with Doctor,
+afterwards Sir, Starr Jameson, the hero of the famous Raid and a
+romantic character in African annals. Jameson came to Kimberley to
+practice medicine in 1878. No less intimate was Rhodes' life-long
+attachment for Alfred Beit, who arrived at the diamond fields from
+Hamburg in 1875 as an obscure buyer. He became a magnate whose
+operations extended to three continents. Beit was the balance wheel in
+the Rhodes financial machine.
+
+The diamond mines at Kimberley are familiar to most readers. They differ
+from the mines in German South-West Africa and the Congo in that they
+are deep level excavations. The Kimberley mine, for example, goes down
+3,000 feet. To see this almost grotesque gash in the earth is to get the
+impression of a very small Grand Canyon of the Colorado. It is an
+awesome and terrifying spectacle for it is shot through with green and
+brown and purple, is more than a thousand feet wide at the top, and
+converges to a visible point a thousand feet below. You feel that out of
+this color and depth has emerged something that itself incarnates lure
+and mystery. Even in its source the diamond is not without its element
+of elusiveness.
+
+The diamonds at Kimberley are found in a blue earth, technically known
+as kimberlite and commonly called "blue ground." This is exposed to sun
+and rain for six months, after which it is shaken down, run over a
+grease table where the vaseline catches the real diamonds, and allows
+the other matter to escape. After a boiling process it is the "rough"
+diamond.
+
+I spent a day in the Dutoitspan Mine where I saw thousands of Kaffirs
+digging away at the precious blue substance soon to be translated into
+the gleaming stone that would dangle on the bosom or shine from the
+finger of some woman ten thousand miles away. I got an evidence of
+American cinema enterprise on this occasion for I suddenly debouched on
+a wide level and under the flickering lights I saw a Yankee operator
+turning the crank of a motion picture camera. He was part of a movie
+outfit getting travel pictures. A hundred naked Zulus stared with
+open-eyed wonder at the performance. When the flashlight was touched off
+they ran for their lives.
+
+This leads me to the conspicuous part that Americans have played at
+Kimberley. Rhodes had great confidence in the Americans, and employed
+them in various capacities that ranged from introducing California
+fruits into South Africa and Rhodesia to handling his most important
+mining interests. When someone asked him why he engaged so many he
+answered, "They are so thorough."
+
+First among the Americans that Rhodes brought to Kimberley was Gardner
+F. Williams, a Michigander who became General Manager of the DeBeers
+Company in 1887 and upon the consolidation, assumed the same post with
+the united interests. He developed the mechanical side of diamond
+production and for many years held what was perhaps the most conspicuous
+technical and administrative post in the industry. He retired in favor
+of his son, Alpheus Williams, who is the present General Manager of all
+the diamond mines at Kimberley.
+
+A little-known American had a vital part in the siege of Kimberley.
+Among the American engineers who rallied round Gardner Williams was
+George Labram. When the Boers invested the town they had the great
+advantage of superiority in weight of metal. Thanks to Britain's lack of
+preparedness, Kimberley only had a few seven pounders, while the Boers
+had "Long Toms" that hurled hundred pounders. At Rhodes' suggestion
+Labram manufactured a big gun capable of throwing a thirty-pound shell
+and it gave the besiegers a big and destructive surprise. This gun,
+which was called "Long Cecil," was built and booming in exactly
+twenty-eight days. Tragically enough, Labram was killed by a Boer shell
+while shaving in his room at the Grand Hotel exactly a week after the
+first discharge of his gun.
+
+
+IV
+
+The part that Americans had in the development of Kimberley is slight
+compared with their participation in the exploitation of the Rand gold
+mines. Not only were they the real pioneers in opening up this greatest
+of all gold fields but they loomed large in the drama of the Jameson
+Raid. One of their number, John Hays Hammond, the best-known of the
+group, was sentenced to death for his role in it. The entire technical
+fabric of the Rand was devised and established by men born, and who had
+the greater part of their experience, in the United States.
+
+The capital of the Rand is Johannesburg. When you ride in a taxicab down
+its broad, well-paved streets or are whirled to the top floor of one of
+its skyscrapers, it is difficult to believe that thirty years ago this
+thriving and metropolitan community was a rocky waste. We are accustomed
+to swift civic transformations in America but Johannesburg surpasses any
+exhibit that we can offer in this line. Once called "a tin town with a
+gold cellar," it has the atmosphere of a continuous cabaret with a jazz
+band going all the time.
+
+No thoroughly acclimated person would ever think of calling Johannesburg
+by its full and proper name. Just as San Francisco is contracted into
+"'Frisco," so is this animated joytown called "Joburg." I made the
+mistake of dignifying the place with its geographical title when I
+innocently remarked, "Johannesburg is a live place." My companion looked
+at me with pity--it was almost sorrow, and replied,
+
+"We think that 'Joburg' (strong emphasis on 'Joburg') is one of the
+hottest places in the world."
+
+The word Rand is Dutch for ridge or reef. Toward the middle of the
+eighties the first mine was discovered on what is the present site of
+Johannesburg. The original excavation was on the historic place known as
+_Witwatersrand_, which means White Water Reef. Kimberley history
+repeated itself for the gold rush to the Transvaal was as noisy and
+picturesque as the dash on the diamond fields. It exceeded the Klondike
+movement because for one thing it was more accessible and in the second
+place there were no really adverse climatic conditions. Thousands died
+in the snow and ice of the Yukon trail while only a few hundred
+succumbed to fever, exposure to rain, and inadequate food on the Rand.
+It resembled the gold rush to California in 1849 more than any other
+similar event.
+
+The Rand gold fields, which in 1920 produced half of the world's gold,
+are embodied in a reef about fifty miles long and twenty miles wide. All
+the mines immediately in and about Johannesburg are practically
+exhausted. The large development today is in the eastern section. People
+do everything but eat gold in Johannesburg. Cooks, maids, waiters,
+bootblacks--indeed the whole population--are interested, or at some time
+have had an interest in a gold mine. Some historic shoestrings have
+become golden cables. J. B. Robinson, for example, one of the well-known
+magnates, and his associates converted an original interest of
+L12,000 into L18,000,000. This Rand history sounds like an
+Aladdin fairy tale.
+
+What concerns us principally, however, is the American end of the whole
+show. Hardly were the first Rand mines uncovered than they felt the
+influence of the American technical touch. Among the first of our
+engineers to go out were three unusual men, Hennen Jennings, H. C.
+Perkins and Captain Thomas Mein. Together with Hamilton Smith, another
+noted American engineer who joined them later, they had all worked in
+the famous El Callao gold mine in Venezuela. Subsequently came John Hays
+Hammond, Charles Butters, Victor M. Clement, J. S. Curtis, T. H.
+Leggett, Pope Yeatman, Fred Hellman, George Webber, H. H. Webb, and
+Louis Seymour. These men were the big fellows. They marshalled hundreds
+of subordinate engineers, mechanics, electricians, mine managers and
+others until there were more than a thousand in the field.
+
+This was the group contemporaneous and identified with the Jameson Raid.
+After the Boer War came what might be called the second generation of
+American engineers, which included Sidney Jennings, a brother of Hennen,
+W. L. Honnold, Samuel Thomson, Ruel C. Warriner, W. W. Mein, the son of
+Capt. Thomas Mein, and H. C. Behr.
+
+Why this American invasion? The reason was simple. The American mining
+engineer of the eighties and the nineties stood in a class by himself.
+Through the gold development of California we were the only people who
+had produced gold mining engineers of large and varied practical
+experience. When Rhodes and Barnato (they were both among the early nine
+mine-owners in the Rand) cast about for capable men they naturally
+picked out Americans. Hammond, for example, was brought to South America
+in 1893 by Barnato and after six months with him went over to Rhodes,
+with whom he was associated both in the Rand and Rhodesia until 1900.
+
+Not only did Americans create the whole technical machine but one of
+them--Hennen Jennings--really saved the field. The first mines were
+"outcrop," that is, the ore literally cropped out at the surface. This
+outcrop is oxidized, and being free, is easily amalgamated with mercury.
+Deeper down in the earth comes the unoxidized zone which continues
+indefinitely. The iron pyrites found here are not oxidized. They hold
+the gold so tenaciously that they are not amalgamable. They must
+therefore be abstracted by some other process than with mercury. At the
+time that the outcrop in the Rand become exhausted, what is today known
+as the "cyanide process" had never been used in that part of the world.
+The mine-owners became discouraged and a slump followed. Jennings had
+heard of the cyanide operation, insisted upon its introduction, and it
+not only retrieved the situation but has become an accepted adjunct of
+gold mining the world over. In the same way Hammond inaugurated
+deep-level mining when many of the owners thought the field was
+exhausted because the outcrop indications had disappeared.
+
+These Americans in the Rand made the mines and they also made history as
+their part in the Jameson Raid showed. Perhaps a word about the Reform
+movement which ended in the Raid is permissible here. It grew out of the
+oppression of the _Uitlander_--the alien--by the Transvaal Government
+animated by Kruger, the President. Although these outsiders, principally
+English and Americans, outnumbered the Boers three to one, they were
+deprived of the rights of citizenship. The Reformers organized an armed
+campaign to capture Kruger and hold him as a hostage until they could
+obtain their rights. The guns and ammunition were smuggled in from
+Kimberley as "hardware" under the supervision of Gardner Williams. It
+was easy to bring the munitions as far as Kimberley. The Boers set up
+such a careful watch on the Transvaal border, however, that every
+subterfuge had to be employed to get them across.
+
+Dr. Jameson, who at that time was Administrator of Southern Rhodesia,
+had a force of Rhodesian police on the Transvaal border ready to come to
+the assistance of the Committee if necessary. The understanding was that
+Jameson should not invade the Transvaal until he was needed. His
+impetuosity spoiled the scheme. Instead of waiting until the Committee
+was properly armed and had seized Kruger, he suddenly crossed the border
+with his forces. The Raid was a fizzle and the commander and all his men
+were captured by the Boers. This abortive attempt was the real prelude
+to the Boer War, which came four years later.
+
+Most Americans who have read about this episode believe that John Hays
+Hammond was the only countryman of theirs in it. This was because he had
+a leading and spectacular part and was one of the four ringleaders
+sentenced to death. He afterwards escaped by the payment of a fine of
+$125,000. As a matter of fact, four other prominent American mining
+engineers were up to their necks in the reform movement and got long
+terms in prison. They were Capt. Thomas Mein, J. S. Curtis, Victor M.
+Clement and Charles Butters. They obtained their freedom by the payment
+of fines of $10,000 each. This whole enterprise netted Kruger something
+like $2,000,000 in cash.
+
+The Jameson Raid did more than enrich old Kruger's coffers and bring the
+American engineers in the Rand to the fore. Indirectly it blocked a
+German scheme that might have played havoc in Africa the moment the
+inevitable Great War broke. If the Boer War had not developed in 1899 it
+is altogether likely that, judging from her whole campaign of world-wide
+interference, Germany would have arranged so that it should break out in
+1914. In this unhappy event she could have struck a death blow at
+England in South Africa because in the years between the Boer War and
+1914 she created close-knit colonial organizations in South-West and
+East Africa; built strategic railways; armed and drilled thousands of
+natives, and could have invaded the Cape Colony and the Transvaal.
+
+In connection with the Jameson Raid is a story not without interest.
+Jameson and Rudyard Kipling happened to be together when the news of
+Roosevelt's coup in Panama was published. The author read it first and
+handed the paper to his friend with the question: "What do you think of
+it?"
+
+Jameson glanced at the article and then replied somewhat sadly, "This
+makes the Raid look like thirty cents."
+
+I cannot leave the Rand section of the Union of South Africa without a
+word in passing about Pretoria, the administrative capital, which is
+only an hour's journey from Johannesburg. Here you still see the old
+house where Kruger lived. It was the throne of a copper-riveted
+autocracy. No modern head of a country ever wielded such a despotic rule
+as this psalm-singing old Boer whose favorite hour for receiving
+visitors was at five o'clock in the morning, when he had his first cup
+of strong coffee, a beverage which he continued to consume throughout
+the day.
+
+The most striking feature of the country around Pretoria is the Premier
+diamond mine, twenty-five miles east of the town and the world's
+greatest single treasure-trove. The mines at Kimberley together
+constitute the largest of all diamond fields but the Premier Mine is the
+biggest single mine anywhere. It produces as much as the four largest
+Kimberley mines combined, and contributes eighteen per cent of the
+yearly output allotted to the Diamond Syndicate.
+
+It was discovered by Thomas M. Cullinan, who bought the site from a Boer
+farmer for $250,000. The land originally cost this farmer $2,500. The
+mine has already produced more than five hundred times what Cullinan
+paid for it and the surface has scarcely been scraped. You can see the
+natives working in its two huge holes which are not more than six
+hundred feet deep. It is still an open mine. In the Premier Mine was
+found the Cullinan diamond, the largest ever discovered and which made
+the Koh-i-noor and all other fabled gems look like small pebbles. It
+weighed 3,200 karats and was insured for $2,500,000 when it was sent to
+England to be presented to King Edward. The Koh-i-noor, by the way,
+which was found in India only weighs 186 karats.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright by South African Railways_
+
+THE PREMIER DIAMOND MINE]
+
+
+V
+
+No attempt at an analysis of South Africa would be complete without some
+reference to the native problem, the one discordant note in the economic
+and productive scheme. The race question, as the Smuts dilemma showed,
+lies at the root of all South African trouble. But the racial conflict
+between Briton and Boer is almost entirely political and in no way
+threatens the commercial integrity. Both the Dutchman and the Englishman
+agree on the whole larger proposition and the necessity of settling once
+and for all a trouble that carries with it the danger of sporadic
+outbreak or worse. Now we come to the whole irritating labor trouble
+which has neither color, caste, nor creed, or geographical line.
+
+First let me bring the South African color problem home to America. In
+the United States the whites outnumber the blacks roughly ten to one.
+Our coloured population represents the evolution of the one-time African
+slave through various generations into a peaceful, law-abiding, and
+useful social unit. The Southern "outrage" is the rare exception. We
+have produced a Frederick Douglass and a Booker Washington. Our Negro is
+a Christian, fills high posts, and invades the professions.
+
+In South Africa the reverse is true. To begin with, the natives
+outnumber the whites four and one-half to one--in Rhodesia they are
+twenty to one--and they are increasing at a much greater rate than the
+Europeans. Moreover, the native population draws on half a dozen races,
+including the Zulus, Kaffirs, Hottentots and Basutos. These Negroes
+represent an almost primitive stage of development. They are mainly
+heathens and a prey to savagery and superstition. The Cape Colony is the
+only one that permits the black man to go to school or become a skilled
+artisan. Elsewhere the white retains his monopoly on the crafts and at
+the same time refuses to do any labour that a Negro can perform. Hence
+the great need of white immigration into the Union. The big task,
+therefore, is to secure adequate work for the Negro without permitting
+him to gain an advantage through it.
+
+It follows that the moment the Kaffir becomes efficient and picks up a
+smattering of education he begins to think about his position and unrest
+is fomented. It makes him unstable as an employee, as the constant
+desertions from work show. The only way that the gold and diamond mines
+keep their thousands of recruited native workers is to confine them in
+compounds. The ordinary labourer has no such restrictions and he is here
+today and gone tomorrow.
+
+It is not surprising to discover that in a country teeming with blacks
+there are really no good servants, a condition with which the American
+housewife can heartily sympathize. Before I went to Africa nearly every
+woman I knew asked me to bring her back a diamond and a cook. They were
+much more concerned about the cook than the diamond. Had I kept every
+promise that I made affecting this human jewel, I would have had to
+charter a ship to convey them. The only decent servant I had in Africa
+was a near-savage in the Congo, a sad commentary on domestic service
+conditions.
+
+The one class of stable servants in the Colony are the "Cape Boys," as
+they are called. They are the coloured offspring of a European and a
+Hottentot or a Malay and are of all shades, from a darkish brown to a
+mere tinge. They dislike being called "niggers." The first time I saw
+these Cape Boys was in France during the war. South Africa sent over
+thousands of them to recruit the labour battalions and they did
+excellent work as teamsters and in other capacities. The Cape Boy,
+however, is the exception to the native rule throughout the Union, which
+means that most native labour is unstable and discontented.
+
+Not only is the South African native a menace to economic expansion but
+he is likewise something of a physical danger. In towns like Pretoria
+and Johannesburg there is a considerable feeling of insecurity. Women
+shrink from being left alone with their servants and are filled with
+apprehension while their little ones are out under black custodianship.
+The one native servant, aside from some of the Cape Boys, who has
+demonstrated absolute fidelity, is the Zulu whom you see in largest
+numbers in Natal. He is still a proud and kingly-looking person and he
+carried with him a hint of the vanished greatness of his race. Perhaps
+one reason why he is safe and sane reposes in his recollection of the
+repeated bitter and bloody defeats at the hands of the white men. Yet
+the Zulu was in armed insurrection in Natal in the nineties.
+
+South Africa enjoys no guarantee of immunity from black uprising even
+now in the twentieth century when the world uses the aeroplane and the
+wireless. During the past thirty years there have been outbreaks
+throughout the African continent. As recently as 1915 a fanatical form
+of Ethiopianism broke out in Nyassaland which lies north-east of
+Rhodesia, under the sponsorship of John Chilembwe, a negro preacher who
+had been educated in the United States. The natives rose, killed a
+number of white men and carried off the women. Of course, it was
+summarily put down and the leaders executed. But the incident was
+significant.
+
+Prester John, whose story is familiar to readers of John Buchan's fine
+romance of the same name, still has disciples. Like Chilembwe he was a
+preacher who had acquired so-called European civilization. He dreamed of
+an Africa for the blacks and took his inspiration from the old kings of
+Abyssinia. He too met the fate of all his kind but his spirit goes
+marching on. In 1919 a Pan-African Congress was held in Paris to discuss
+some plan for what might be called Pan-Ethiopianism. The following year
+a negro convention in New York City advocated that all Africa should be
+converted into a black republic.
+
+One example of African native unrest was brought strikingly to my
+personal attention. At Capetown I met one of the heads of a large Cape
+Colony school for Negroes which is conducted under religious auspices.
+The occasion was a dinner given by J. X. Merriman, the Grand Old Man of
+the Cape Colony. This particular educator spoke with glowing enthusiasm
+about this institution and dwelt particularly upon the evolution that
+was being accomplished. He gave me a pressing invitation to visit it. He
+happened to be on the train that I took to Kimberley, which was also the
+first stage of his journey home and he talked some more about the great
+work the school was doing.
+
+When I reached Kimberley the first item of news that I read in the
+local paper was an account of an uprising in the school. Hundreds of
+native students rebelled at the quality of food they were getting and
+went on the rampage. They destroyed the power-plant and wrecked several
+of the buildings. The constabulary had to be called out to restore
+order.
+
+In many respects most Central and South African Negroes never really
+lose the primitive in them despite the claims of uplifters and
+sentimentalists. Actual contact is a disillusioning thing. I heard of a
+concrete case when I was in the Belgian Congo. A Belgian judge at a post
+up the Kasai River acquired an intelligent Baluba boy. All personal
+servants in Africa are called "boys." This particular native learned
+French, acquired European clothes and became a model servant. When the
+judge went home to Belgium on leave he took the boy along. He decided to
+stay longer than he expected and sent the negro back to the Congo. No
+sooner did the boy get back to his native heath than he sold his
+European clothes, put on a loin cloth, and squatted on the ground when
+he ate, precisely like his savage brethren. It is a typical case, and
+merely shows that a great deal of so-called black-acquired civilization
+in Africa falls away with the garb of civilization.
+
+The only African blacks who have really assimilated the civilizing
+influence so far as my personal observation goes are those of the West
+Coast. Some of the inhabitants of Sierra Leone will illustrate what I
+mean. Scores have gone to Oxford and Cambridge and have become doctors,
+lawyers and competent civil servants. They resemble the American Negro
+more than any others in Africa. This parallel even goes to their
+fondness for using big words. I saw hundreds of them holding down
+important clerical positions in the Belgian Congo where they are known
+as "Coast-men," because they come from the West Coast.
+
+I had an amusing experience with one when I was on my way out of the
+Congo jungle. I sent a message by him to the captain of the little
+steamboat that took me up and down the Kasai River. In this message I
+asked that the vessel be made ready for immediate departure. The
+Coast-man, whose name was Wilson--they all have English names and speak
+English fluently--came back and said:
+
+"I have conveyed your expressed desire to leave immediately to the
+captain of your boat. He only returns a verbal acquiescence but I assure
+you that he will leave nothing undone to facilitate your speedy
+departure."
+
+He said all this with such a solemn and sober face that you would have
+thought the whole destiny of the British Empire depended upon the
+elaborateness of his utterance.
+
+To return to the matter of unrest, all the concrete happenings that I
+have related show that the authority of the white man in Africa is still
+resented by the natives. It serves to emphasize what Mr. Lothrop
+Stoddard, an eminent authority on this subject, so aptly calls "the
+rising tide of colour." We white people seldom stop to realize how
+overwhelmingly we are outnumbered. Out of the world population of
+approximately 1,700,000,000 persons (I am using Mr. Stoddard's figures),
+only 550,000,000 are white.
+
+A colour conflict is improbable but by no means impossible. We have only
+to look at our own troubles with the Japanese to get an intimate glimpse
+of what might lurk in a yellow tidal wave. The yellow man humbled Russia
+in the Russo-Japanese War and he smashed the Germans at Kiao Chow in
+the Great War. The fact that he was permitted to fight shoulder to
+shoulder with the white man has only added to his cockiness as we have
+discovered in California.
+
+Remember too that the Germans stirred up all Islam in their mad attempt
+to conquer the world. The Mohammedan has not forgotten what the Teutonic
+propagandists told him when they laid the cunning train of bad feeling
+that precipitated Turkey into the Great War. These seeds of discord are
+bearing fruit in many Near Eastern quarters. One result is that a
+British army is fighting in Mesopotamia now. A Holy War is merely the
+full brother of the possible War of Colour. In East Africa the Germans
+used thousands of native troops against the British and Belgians. The
+blacks got a taste, figuratively, of the white man's blood and it did
+his system no good.
+
+Throughout the globe there are 150,000,000 blacks and all but 30,000,000
+of them are south of the Sahara Desert in Africa. They lack the high
+mental development of the yellow man as expressed in the Japanese, but
+even brute force is not to be despised, especially where it outnumbers
+the whites to the extent that they do in South Africa. I am no alarmist
+and I do not presume to say that there will be serious trouble. I merely
+present these facts to show that certainly so far as affecting
+production and economic security in general is concerned, the native
+still provides a vexing and irritating problem, not without danger.
+
+The Union of South Africa is keenly alive to this perplexing native
+situation. Its policy is what might be called the Direct Rule, in which
+the whole administration of the country is in the hands of the Europeans
+and which is the opposite of the Indirect Rule of India, for example,
+which recognizes Rajahs and other potentates and which permits the brown
+man to hold a variety of public posts.
+
+The Government of the Cape Colony is becoming convinced that Booker
+Washington's idea is the sole salvation of the race. That great leader
+maintained that the hope for the Negro in the United States and
+elsewhere lay in the training of his hands. Once those hands were
+skilled they could be kept out of mischief. I recall having discussed
+this theory one night with General Smuts at Capetown and he expressed
+his hearty approval of it.
+
+The lamented Botha died before he could put into operation a plan which
+held out the promise of still another kind of solution. It lay in the
+soil. He contended that an area of forty million acres should be set
+aside for the natives, where many could work out their destinies
+themselves. While this plan offered the opportunity for the
+establishment of a compact and perhaps dangerous black entity, his
+feeling was that by the avoidance of friction with the whites the
+possibility of trouble would be minimized. This scheme is likely to be
+carried out by Smuts.
+
+Since the Union of South Africa profited by the whirligig of war to the
+extent of acquiring German South-West Africa it only remains to speak of
+the new map of Africa, made possible by the Great Conflict. Despite the
+return of Alsace-Lorraine to France one fails to see concrete evidence
+of Germany's defeat in Europe. Her people are still cocky and defiant.
+There is no mistake about her altered condition in Africa. Her flag
+there has gone into the discard along with the wreck of militarism. The
+immense territory that she acquired principally by browbeating is lost,
+down to the last square mile.
+
+Up to 1884 Germany did not own an inch of African soil. Within two years
+she was mistress of more than a million square miles. Analyze her whole
+performance on the continent and a definite cause of the World War is
+discovered. It is part of an international conspiracy studded with
+astonishing details.
+
+Africa was a definite means to world conquest. Germany knew of her vast
+undeveloped wealth. It is now no secret that her plan was to annex the
+greater part of French, Belgian, Italian and Portuguese Africa in the
+event that she won. The Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway would have hitched up
+the late Teutonic Empire with the Near East and made it easy to link the
+African domain with this intermediary through the Turkish dominions.
+Here was an imposing program with many advantages. For one thing it
+would have given Germany an untold store of raw materials and it would
+also have put her into a position to dictate to Southern Asia and even
+South America.
+
+The methods that Germany adopted to acquire her African possessions were
+peculiarly typical. Like the madness that plunged her into a struggle
+with civilization they were her own undoing. Into a continent whose
+middle name, so far as colonization goes, is intrigue she fitted
+perfectly. Practically every German colony in Africa represented the
+triumph of "butting in" or intimidation. The Kaiser That Was regarded
+himself as the mentor, and sought to recast continents in the same grand
+way that he lectured his minions.
+
+The first German colony in Africa was German South-West, as it was
+called for short, and grew out of a deal made between a Bremen merchant
+and a native chief. On the strength of this Bismarck pinched out an area
+almost as big as British East Africa. Before twelve months had passed
+the German flag flew over what came to be known as German East Africa,
+and also over Togoland and the The Cameroons on the West Coast.
+
+Germany really had no right to invade any of this country but she was
+developing into a strong military power and rather than have trouble,
+the other nations acquiesced. Once intrenched, she started her usual
+interference. The prize mischief-maker of the universe, she began to
+stir up trouble in every quarter. She embroiled the French at Agadir and
+got into a snarl with Portugal over Angola.
+
+The Kaiser's experience with Kruger is typical. When the Jameson Raid
+petered out William Hohenzollern sent the dictator of the Transvaal a
+telegram of congratulation. The old Boer immediately regarded him as an
+ally and counted on his aid when the Boer War started. Instead, he got
+the double-cross after he had sent his ultimatum to England. At that
+time the Kaiser warily side-stepped an entanglement with Britain for the
+reason that she was too useful.
+
+It is now evident that a large part of the Congo atrocity was a German
+scheme. The head and front of the expose movement was Sir Roger Casement
+of London. He sought to foment a German-financed revolution in Ireland
+and was hanged as a traitor in the Tower.
+
+Behind this atrocity crusade was just another evidence of the German
+desire to control Africa. By rousing the world against Belgium, Germany
+expected to bring another Berlin Congress, which would be expected to
+give her the stewardship of the Belgian Congo. The result would have
+been a German belt across Africa from the Indian to the Atlantic Oceans.
+She could thus have had England and France at a disadvantage on the
+north, and England and Portugal where she wanted them, to the south.
+Hence the Great War was not so much a matter of German meddling in the
+Balkans as it was her persistent manipulation of other nations' affairs
+in Africa. She was playing "freeze-out" on a stupendous scale. You can
+see why Germany was so much opposed to the Cape-to-Cairo Route. It
+interfered with her ambitions and provided a constant irritant to her
+"benevolent" plans.
+
+So much for the war end. Turn to the peace aspect. With Germany
+eliminated from the African scheme the whole region can enter upon a
+harmonious development. More than this, the fact that she is now
+deprived of colonies prevents her from recovering the world-wide
+economic authority she commanded before the war. A congested population
+allows her no more elbow room at home. Before she went mad her whole
+hope of the future lay in a colonization where her flag could fly in
+public, and in a penetration which cunningly masked the German hand. The
+world is now wise to the latter procedure.
+
+The new colour scheme of the African map may now be disclosed. The Union
+of South Africa, as you have seen, has taken over German South-West
+Africa; Great Britain has assumed the control of all German East Africa
+with the exception of Ruanda and Urundu, which have become part of the
+Belgian Congo. Togoland is divided between France and Britain, while the
+greater part of The Cameroons is merged into the Lower French West
+African possessions of which the French Congo is the principal one.
+Britain gets the Cameroon Mountains.
+
+The one-time Dark Continent remains dark only for Germany.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright British South Africa Co._
+
+VICTORIA FALLS]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III--RHODES AND RHODESIA
+
+
+I
+
+For fifty-eight hours the train from Johannesburg had travelled steadily
+northward, past Mafeking and on through the apparently endless stretches
+of Bechuanaland. Alternately frozen and baked, I had swallowed enough
+dust to stock a small-sized desert. Dawn of the third day broke and with
+it came a sharp rap on my compartment door. I had been dreaming of a
+warm bath and a joltless life when I was rudely restored to reality. The
+car was stationary and a blanketed Matabele, his teeth chattering with
+the cold, peered in at the window.
+
+"What is it?" I asked.
+
+"You are in Rhodesia and I want to know who you are," boomed a voice out
+in the corridor.
+
+I opened the door and a tall, rangy, bronzed man--the immigration
+inspector--stepped inside. He looked like a cross between an Arizona
+cowboy and an Australian overseas soldier. When I proved to his
+satisfaction that I was neither Bolshevik nor Boche he departed with the
+remark: "We've got to keep a watch on the people who come into this
+country."
+
+Such was my introduction to Rhodesia, where the limousine and the
+ox-team compete for right of way on the veldt and the 'rickshaw yields
+to the motor-cycle in the town streets. Nowhere in the world can you
+find a region that combines to such vivid and picturesque extent the
+romance and hardship of the pioneer age with the push and practicality
+of today. Here existed the "King Solomon's Mines" of Rider Haggard's
+fancy: here the modern gold-seekers of fact sought the treasures of
+Ophir; here Nature gives an awesome manifestation of her power in the
+Victoria Falls.
+
+It is the only country where a great business corporation rules, not by
+might of money but by chartered authority. Linked with that rule is the
+story of a conflict between share-holder and settler that is unique in
+the history of colonization. It is the now-familiar and well-nigh
+universal struggle for self-determination waged in this instance between
+all-British elements and without violence.
+
+All the way from Capetown I had followed the trail of Cecil Rhodes,
+which like the man himself, is distinct. It is not the succession of
+useless and conventional monuments reared by a grateful posterity.
+Rather it is expressed in terms of cities and a permanent industrial and
+agricultural advance. "Living he was the land," and dead, his imperious
+and constructive spirit goes marching on. The Rhodes impress is
+everywhere. Now I had arrived at the cap-stone of it all, the domain
+that bears his name and which he added to the British Empire.
+
+Less than two hours after the immigration inspector had given me the
+once-over on the frontier I was in Bulawayo, metropolis of Rhodesia,
+which sprawls over the veldt just like a bustling Kansas community
+spreads out over the prairie. It is definitely American in energy and
+atmosphere. Save for the near-naked blacks you could almost imagine
+yourself in Idaho or Montana back in the days when our West was young.
+
+Before that first day ended I had lunched and dined in a club that would
+do credit to Capetown or Johannesburg; had met women who wore French
+frocks, and had heard the possibilities of the section acclaimed by a
+dozen enthusiasts. Everyone in Rhodesia is a born booster. Again you get
+the parallel with our own kind.
+
+To the average American reader Rhodesia is merely a name, associated
+with the midnight raid of stealthy savage and all the terror and tragedy
+of the white man's burden amid the wild confines. All this happened, to
+be sure, but it is part of the past. While South Africa still wrestles
+with a serious native problem, Rhodesia has settled it once and for all.
+It would be impossible to find a milder lot than the survivors and sons
+of the cruel and war-like Lobengula who once ruled here like a despot of
+old. His tribesmen--the Matabeles--were put in their place by a strong
+hand and they remain put.
+
+Bulawayo was the capital of Lobengula's kingdom. The word means "Place
+of Slaughter," and it did not belie the name. You can still see the tree
+under which the portly potentate sat and daily dispensed sanguinary
+judgment. His method was quite simple. If anyone irritated or displeased
+him he was haled up "under the greenwood" and sentenced to death. If
+gout or rheumatism racked the royal frame the chief executed the first
+passerby and then considered the source of the trouble removed. The only
+thing that really departed was the head of the innocent victim.
+Lobengula had sixty-eight wives, which may account for some of his
+eccentricities. Chaka, the famous king of the Zulus, whose favourite
+sport was murdering his sons (he feared a rival to the throne), was an
+amateur in crime alongside the dusky monarch whom the British
+suppressed, and thereby gained what is now the most prosperous part of
+Southern Rhodesia.
+
+The occupation and development of Rhodesia are so comparatively
+recent--(Rhodes and Dr. Jameson were fighting the Matabeles at Bulawayo
+in 1896)--that any account of the country must at the outset include a
+brief historical approach to the time of my visit last May. Probe into
+the beginnings of any African colony and you immediately uncover
+intrigue and militant imperialism. Rhodesia is no exception.
+
+For ages the huge continent of which it is part was veiled behind
+mystery and darkness. The northern and southern extremes early came into
+the ken of the explorer and after him the builder. So too with most of
+the coast. But the vast central belt, skirted by the arid reaches of
+Sahara on one side and unknown territory on the other, defied
+civilization until Livingstone, Stanley, Speke, and Grant blazed the
+way. Then began the scramble for colonies.
+
+Early in the eighties more than one European power cast covetous glances
+at what might be called the South Central area. Thanks to the economic
+foresight of King Leopold, Belgium had secured the Congo. Between this
+region which was then a Free State, and the Transvaal, was an immense
+and unappropriated country,--a sort of no man's land, rich with
+minerals, teeming with forests and peopled by savages. Two territories,
+Matabeleland, ruled by Lobengula, and Mashonaland, inhabited by the
+Mashonas, who were to all intents and purposes vassals to Lobengula,
+were the prize portions. Another immense area--the present British
+protectorate of Bechuanaland--was immediately south and touched the Cape
+Colony and the Transvaal. Portuguese East Africa lay to the east but
+the backbone of Africa south of the Congo line lay ready to be plucked
+by venturesome hands.
+
+Nor were the hands lacking for the enterprise. Germany started to
+strengthen the network of conspiracy that had already yielded her a
+million square miles of African soil and she was reaching out for more.
+Control of Africa meant for her a big step toward world conquest. Paul
+Kruger, President of the Transvaal Republic, which touched the southern
+edge of this unclaimed domain, saw in it the logical extension of his
+dominions.
+
+Down at Capetown was Rhodes, dreaming of a Greater Britain and
+determined to block the Kaiser and Kruger. It was largely due to his
+efforts while a member of the Cape Parliament that Britain was persuaded
+to annex Bechuanaland as a Crown Colony. Forestalled here, Kruger was
+determined to get the rest of the country beyond Bechuanaland and
+reaching to the southern border of the Congo. His emissaries began to
+dicker with chiefs and he organized an expedition to invade the
+territory. Once more Rhodes beat him to it, this time in history-making
+fashion.
+
+Following his theory that it is better to deal with a man than fight
+him, he sent C. D. Rudd, Rochfort Maguire, and F. R. ("Matabele")
+Thompson up to deal directly with Lobengula. They were ideal envoys for
+Thompson in particular knew every inch of the country and spoke the
+native languages. From the crafty chieftain they obtained a blanket
+concession for all the mineral and trading rights in Matabeleland for
+L1,200 a year and one thousand rifles. Rhodes now converted this
+concession into a commercial and colonizing achievement without
+precedent or parallel. It became the Magna Charta of the great British
+South Africa Company, which did for Africa what the East India Company
+did for India. Counting in Bechuanaland, it added more than 700,000
+square miles to the British Empire.
+
+Like the historic document so inseparably associated with the glories of
+Clive and Hastings, its Charter shaped the destiny of the empire and is
+associated with battle, blood, and the eventual triumph of the
+Anglo-Saxon over the man of colour. Other chartered companies have
+wielded autocratic power over millions of natives but the royal right to
+exist and operate, bestowed by Queen Victoria upon the British South
+Africa Company--the Chartered Company as it is commonly known--was the
+first that ever gave a corporation the administrative authority over a
+politically active country with a white population. The record of its
+rule is therefore distinct in the annals of Big Business.
+
+It was in 1899 that Rhodes got the Charter. In his conception of the
+Rhodesia that was to be--(it was first called Zambesia)--he had two
+distinct purposes in view. One was the larger political motive which was
+to widen the Empire and keep the Germans and Boers from annexing
+territory that he believed should be British. This was Rhodes the
+imperialist at work. The other aspect was the purely commercial side and
+revealed the same shrewdness that had registered so successfully in the
+creation of the Diamond Trust at Kimberley. This was Rhodes the business
+man on the job.
+
+The Charter itself was a visualization of the Rhodes mind and it matched
+the Cape-to-Cairo project in bigness of vision. It gave the Company the
+right to acquire and develop land everywhere, to engage in shipping, to
+build railway, telegraph and telephone lines, to establish banks, to
+operate mines and irrigation undertakings and to promote commerce and
+manufacture of all kinds. Nothing was overlooked. It meant the union of
+business and statesmanship.
+
+Under the Charter the Company was given administrative control of an
+area larger than that of Great Britain, France and Prussia. It divided
+up into Northern and Southern Rhodesia with the Zambesi River as the
+separating line. Northern Rhodesia remains a sparsely settled
+country--there are only 2,000 white inhabitants to 850,000 natives--and
+the only industry of importance is the lead and zinc development at
+Broken Hill. Southern Rhodesia, where there are 35,000 white persons and
+800,000 natives, has been the stronghold of Chartered interests and the
+battleground of the struggle to throw off corporate control. It is the
+Rhodesia to be referred to henceforth in this chapter without prefix.
+
+The Charter is perpetual but it contained a provision that at the end of
+twenty-five years, (1914) and at the end of each succeeding ten years,
+the Imperial Government has the power to alter, amend or rescind the
+instrument so far as the administration of Rhodesia is concerned. No
+vital change in the original document has been made so far, but by the
+time the next cycle expires in 1924 it is certain that the Company
+control will have ended and Rhodesia will either be a part of the Union
+of South Africa or a self-determining Colony.
+
+The Company is directed by a Board of Directors in London, but no
+director resides in the country itself. Thus at the beginning the
+fundamental mistake was made in attempting to run an immense area at
+long range. With the approval of the Foreign Office the Company names an
+Administrator,--the present one is Sir Drummond Chaplin,--who, like the
+average Governor-General, has little to say. The Company has exercised
+a copper-riveted control and this rigid rule led to its undoing, as you
+will see later on.
+
+The original capitalization was L1,000,000,--it was afterwards
+increased to L9,000,000,--but it is only a part of the stream of
+pounds sterling that has been poured into the country. In all the years
+of its existence the company has never paid a dividend. It is only since
+1914 that the revenue has balanced expenditures. More than 40,000
+shareholders have invested in the enterprise. Today the fate of the
+country rests practically on the issue between the interests of these
+shareholders on one hand and the 35,000 inhabitants on the other. Once
+more you get the spectacle, so common to American financial history, of
+a strongly intrenched vested interest with the real exploiter or the
+consumer arrayed against it. The Company rule has not been harsh but it
+has been animated by a desire to make a profit. The homesteaders want
+liberty of movement without handicap or restraint. An irreconcilable
+conflict ensued.
+
+[Illustration: _Photograph Copyright by British South Africa Co._
+
+CULTIVATING CITRUS LAND IN RHODESIA]
+
+
+II
+
+We can now go into the story of the occupation of Rhodesia, which not
+only unfolds a stirring drama of development but discloses something of
+an epic of adventure. With most corporations it is an easy matter to get
+down to business once a charter is granted. It is only necessary to
+subscribe stock and then enter upon active operations, whether they
+produce soap, razors or automobiles. The market is established for the
+product.
+
+With the British South Africa Company it was a far different and
+infinitely more difficult performance, to translate the license to
+operate into action. Matabeleland and Mashonaland were wild regions
+where war-like tribes roamed or fought at will. There were no roads. The
+only white men who had ventured there were hunters, traders, and
+concession seekers. Occupation preceded exploitation. A white man's
+civilization had to be set up first. The rifle and the hoe went in
+together.
+
+In June, 1890, the Pioneer Column entered. Heading it were two men who
+left an impress upon African romance. One was Dr. Jameson, hero of the
+Raid and Rhodes' most intimate friend. The first time I met him I
+marvelled that this slight, bald, mild little man should have been the
+central figure in so many heroic exploits. The other was the famous
+hunter, F. C. Selous, who was Roosevelt's companion in British East
+Africa. Under them were less than two hundred white men, including
+Captain Heany, an American, who now invaded a country where
+Lobengula had an army of 20,000 trained fighters, organized into
+_impis_--(regiments)--after the Zulu fashion and in every respect a
+formidable force. Although the old chief had granted the concession, no
+one trusted him and Jameson and Selous had to feel their way, sleep
+under arms every night, and build highways as they went.
+
+Upon Lobengula's suggestion it was decided to occupy Mashonaland first.
+This was achieved without any trouble and the British flag was raised on
+what is now the site of Salisbury, the capital of Southern Rhodesia.
+Most of the members of the expedition remained as settlers, and farms
+sprang up on the veldt. The Company had to organize a police force to
+patrol the land and keep off predatory natives. But this was purely
+incidental to the larger troubles that now crowded thick and fast. In
+the South the Boers launched an expedition to occupy Matabeleland by
+force and it had to be headed off. To the east rose friction with the
+Portuguese and a Rhodesian contingent was compelled to occupy part of
+Portuguese East Africa until the boundary line was adjusted.
+
+In 1893 came the first of the events that made Rhodesia a storm center.
+A Matabele regiment raided the new town of Victoria and killed some of
+the Company's native servants. The Matabeles then went on the warpath
+and Dr. Jameson took the field against them. For five weeks a bitter
+struggle raged. It ended with the defeat and disappearance of Lobengula
+and the occupation of Bulawayo by the Company forces. This brought the
+whole of Matabeleland under the direct authority of the British South
+Africa Company. The campaign cost the Company $500,000.
+
+Three years of peace and progress followed. Railway construction
+started in two directions. One line was headed from the south through
+Bechuanaland toward Bulawayo and another from Beira, the Indian Ocean
+port in Portuguese East Africa, westward toward Salisbury. Gold mines
+were opened and farms extended. At the end of 1895 came the Jameson
+Raid. Practically the entire force under the many-sided Doctor was
+recruited from the Rhodesian police and they were all captured by the
+Boers. Rhodesia was left defenceless.
+
+The Matabeles seized this moment to strike again. Ever since the defeat
+of 1893 they had been restless and discontented. Various other causes
+contributed to the uprising. One is peculiarly typical of the African
+savage. An outbreak of rinderpest, a disease hitherto unknown in
+Southern Africa, came down from the North and ravaged the cattle herds.
+In order to check the advance of the pest the Government established a
+clear belt by shooting all the cattle in a certain area. It was
+impossible for the Matabeles to understand the wisdom of this procedure.
+They only saw it as an outrage committed by the white men on their
+property for they were extensive cattle owners. In addition many died
+after eating infected meat and they also held the settlers responsible.
+The net result of it all was a sudden descent upon the white settlements
+and scores of white men, women and children were slaughtered.
+
+This time the operations against them were on a large scale. The present
+Lord Plumer, who commanded the Fourth British Army in France against the
+Germans,--he was then a Lieutenant Colonel--came up with eight hundred
+soldiers and drove the Matabeles into the fastnesses of the Matopos,--a
+range of hills fifty miles long and more than twenty wide. Here the
+savages took refuge in caves and could not be driven out.
+
+You now reach one of the remarkable feats in the life of Cecil Rhodes.
+The moment that the second Matabele war began he hastened northward to
+the country that bore his name. As soon as the Matabeles took refuge in
+the Matopos he boldly went out to parley with them. With three unarmed
+companions, one of them an interpreter, he set up a camp in the wilds
+and sent emissaries to the syndicate of the chiefs who had succeeded
+Lobengula. He had become Premier of the Cape Colony, was head of the
+great DeBeers Diamond Syndicate, and had other immense interests. He was
+also Managing Director of the British South Africa Company and the
+biggest stockholder. He was determined to protect his interests and at
+the same time preserve the integrity of the country that he loved so
+well.
+
+He exposed himself every night to raids by the most blood-thirsty
+savages in all Africa. Plumer's command was camped nearly five miles
+away but Rhodes refused a guard.
+
+Rhodes waited patiently and his perseverance was eventually rewarded.
+One by one the chiefs came down from the hills and succumbed to the
+persuasiveness and personality of this remarkable man who could deal
+with wild and naked warriors as successfully as he could dictate to a
+group of hard-headed business men. After two months of negotiating the
+Matabeles were appeased and permanent peace, so far as the natives were
+concerned, dawned in Rhodesia. After his feat in the Matopos the
+Matabeles called Rhodes "The Man Who Separated the Fighting Bulls." It
+was during this period in Rhodesia that Rhodes discovered the place
+which he called "The View of the World," and where his remains now lie
+in lonely grandeur.
+
+At Groote Schuur, the Rhodes house near Capetown, which he left as the
+permanent residence of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa,
+I saw a prized souvenir of the Matopos conferences with the Matabeles.
+On the wall in Rhodes' bedroom hangs the faded picture of an old and
+shriveled Matabele woman. When I asked General Smuts to tell me who she
+was he replied: "That is the woman who acted as the chief negotiator
+between Rhodes and the rebels." I afterwards found out that she was one
+of the wives of Umziligazi, father of Lobengula, and a noted Zulu
+chieftain. Rhodes never forgot the service she rendered him and caused
+the photograph of her to be taken.
+
+Following the last Matabele insurrection the Imperial Government which
+is represented in Rhodesia by a Resident Commissioner assumed control of
+the natives. The Crown was possibly guided by the precedent of Natal,
+where a premature Responsible Government was followed by two Zulu wars
+which well-nigh wrecked the province. It has become the policy of the
+Home Government not to permit a relatively small white population to
+rule the natives. Whatever the influence, Rhodesia has had no trouble
+with the natives since Rhodes made the peace up in the hills of the
+Matopos.
+
+The moment that the war of force ended, another and bloodless war of
+words began and it has continued ever since. I mean the fight for
+self-government that the settlers have waged against the Chartered
+Company. This brings us to a contest that contributes a significant and
+little-known chapter to the whole narrative of self-determination among
+the small peoples.
+
+Through its Charter the British South Africa Company was able to fasten
+a copper-rivetted rule on Rhodesia. Most of the Directors in London,
+with the exception of men like Dr. Jameson, knew very little about the
+country. There was no resident Director in Africa and the members of the
+Board only came out just before the elections. The Administrator was
+always a Company man and until 1899 his administrative associates in the
+field were the members of an Executive Council nominated by the Company.
+Meanwhile thousands of men had invested their fortunes in the land and
+the inevitable time came when they believed that they should have a
+voice in the conduct of its affairs.
+
+This sentiment became so widespread that in 1899 the country was given a
+Legislative Council which for the first time enabled the Rhodesians to
+elect some of their own people to office. At first they were only
+allowed three members, while the Company nominated six others. This
+always gave the Chartered interests a majority. Subsequently, as the
+clamour for popular representation grew, the number of elected
+representatives was increased to thirteen, while those nominated by
+Charter remained the same. To get a majority under the new deal it was
+only necessary for the Company to get the support of four elected
+members and on account of its relatively vast commercial interest it was
+usually easy to do this.
+
+It would be difficult to find an exact parallel to this situation. In
+America we have had many conflicts with what our campaign orators call
+"Special Privilege," an institution which thrived before the searchlight
+of publicity was turned on corporate control and prior to the time when
+fangs were put into the stewardship of railways. These contestants were
+sometimes decided at the polls with varying degrees of success. Perhaps
+the nearest approach to the Rhodesian line-up was the struggle of the
+California wheat growers against the Southern Pacific Railway, which
+Frank Norris dramatized in his book, "The Octopus."
+
+All the while the feeling for Responsible Government in Rhodesia grew. A
+strong group which opposed the Chartered regime sprang up. At the
+beginning of the struggle the line was sharply drawn between the Charter
+adherents on one side and unorganized opponents on the other. By 1914
+the issue was sharply defined. The first twenty-five years of the
+Charter were about to end and the insurgents realized that it was an
+opportune moment for a show of strength. The opposition had three plans.
+Some advocated the conversion of Rhodesia into a Crown Colony, others
+strongly urged admission to the Union of South Africa, while still
+another wing stood for Responsible Government. It was decided to unite
+on a common platform of Responsible Government.
+
+For the first time the Company realized that it had a fight on its hands
+and Dr. Jameson, who had become president of the corporation, went out
+to Rhodesia and made speeches urging loyalty to the Charter. His
+appearance stirred memories of the pioneer days and almost without
+exception the old guard rallied round him. A red-hot campaign ensued
+with the result that the whole pro-Charter ticket, with one exception,
+was elected, although the antis polled 45 per cent of the total vote.
+
+Out of this defeat came a partial victory for the Progressives. The
+Imperial Government saw the handwriting on the wall and acting within
+its powers, which permitted an administrative change in the Charter at
+the end of every ten years, granted a Supplemental Charter which
+provided that the Legislative Council could by an absolute majority of
+all its members pass a resolution "praying the Crown to establish in
+Southern Rhodesia the form of Government known as Responsible
+Government," provided that it could financially support this procedure.
+It gave the insurgents fresh hope and it made the Company realize that
+sooner or later its authority must end.
+
+Then the Great War broke. Every available man that could possibly be
+spared went to the Front and the life of the Council was extended until
+1920, when a conclusive election was to be held. Meanwhile the Company,
+realizing that it must sooner or later bow to the people's will, got
+busy with an attempt to realize on its assets. Chief among them were the
+millions of acres of so-called "unalienated" or Crown land in Southern
+Rhodesia. The Chartered Company claimed this land as a private asset.
+The settlers alleged that it belonged to them. The Government said it
+was an imperial possession. The Privy Council in London upheld the
+latter contention. Thereupon the Company filed a claim for
+$35,000,000.00 against the Government to cover the value of this land
+and its losses throughout the years of administration.
+
+Yielding to pressure the Legislative Council in 1919 asked the British
+Government to declare itself on the question of replacing the Charter
+with some form of Government suited to the needs of the country. Lord
+Milner, the Colonial Secretary, answered in what came to be known as the
+"Milner Despatch." In it he said that he did not believe the territory
+"in its present stage of development was equal to the financial burden
+of Responsible Government." He mildly suggested representative
+government under the Crown.
+
+The general expectation throughout Rhodesia was that no election would
+be held until a Government Commission then sitting, had inquired into
+the validity of the Company's immense claim for damages. Early in March
+1920, however, the Legislative Council gave notice that the election was
+set for April 30th. It proved to be the most exciting ever held in
+Rhodesia. The Chartered Company made no fight. The contest was really
+waged between the two wings of the anti-Charter crowd. One favored
+Responsible Government and the other, admission to the Union of South
+Africa.
+
+The arguments for Responsible Government briefly were these: That under
+the Supplemental Charter it was the only constitutional change possible;
+that the financial burden was not too heavy; that the native question
+was no bar; that the Imperial Government would never saddle the country
+with the huge debt of the Company; that under the Union a hateful
+bi-lingualism would be introduced; that taxation would not be excessive,
+and that finally, the right of self-determination as to Government was
+the birthright of the British people.
+
+The adherents of Union contended that the original idea of Cecil Rhodes
+was to make Rhodesia a part of the Union of South Africa; that by this
+procedure the vexing problem of customs with the Union would be solved;
+that the system of self-government in South Africa meets every
+requirement of self-determination. Moreover, the point was made that by
+becoming a part of the Union the whole railway question would be
+settled. At present the Rhodesian railways have three ends, one in South
+Africa at Vryburg, another on the Belgian border, and a third at the sea
+at Beira. It was claimed that through the Union, Rhodesia would benefit
+by becoming a part of the nationalized railway system there and get the
+advantage of a British port at the Cape instead of Beira, which is
+Portuguese. In other words, Union meant stability of credit, politics,
+finance and industry.
+
+The outcome of the election was that twelve Responsible Government
+candidates, one of them a woman, were elected. Women voted for the first
+time in Rhodesia and they solidly opposed the union with South Africa.
+The thirteenth member elected stood for the conversion of the country
+into a Crown Colony under representative government. Throughout the
+campaign the Chartered Company remained neutral, although it was
+obviously opposed to Responsible Government. The feeling throughout
+Rhodesia is that it favors Union because it could dispose of its assets
+to better advantage.
+
+I arrived in Rhodesia immediately after the election. The country still
+sizzled with excitement. Curiously enough, the head, brains and front of
+the fight for union with South Africa was a former American, now a
+British subject and who has been a ranchman in Rhodesia for some years.
+He prefers to be nameless.
+
+In the light of the landslide at the polls it naturally followed that
+the new Legislative Council at its first meeting passed a resolution
+declaring for Responsible Government. The vote was twelve to five. Since
+this was not an absolute majority, as required by the Supplementary
+Charter, it is expected that the Imperial Government will decide against
+granting this form of government just now. The next procedure will
+probably be a request for representative government under the Crown or
+some modification of the Charter, and for an Imperial loan. Rhodesia has
+no borrowing power and the country needs money just as much as its needs
+men. The adherents of Union claim that on a straight show-down between
+Crown Colony or Union at the next election, Union will win. From what I
+gathered in conversation with the leaders of both factions, there would
+have been a bigger vote, possibly victory for Union, but for the
+Nationalist movement in South Africa, which I described in a previous
+chapter. The Rhodesians want no racial entanglements.
+
+Northern Rhodesia has no part in the fight against the Charter. It is
+only a question of time, however, when she will be merged into Southern
+Rhodesia for, with the passing of the Company, her destiny becomes
+identical with that of her sister territory. Northern Rhodesia's chief
+complaint against the Company was that it did not spend any money within
+her borders. After reading the story of the crusade for Responsible
+Government you can understand the reason why.
+
+Whatever happens, Charter rule in Rhodesia is doomed and the great
+Company, born of the vision and imperialism of Cecil Rhodes, and which
+battled with the wild man in the wilderness, will eventually vanish from
+the category of corporations. But Rhodesia remains a thriving part of
+the British Empire and the dream of the founder is realized.
+
+
+III
+
+Rhodesia produces much more than trouble for the Chartered Company. She
+is pre-eminently a land of ranches and farms. Here you get still another
+parallel with the United States because it is no uncommon thing to find
+a farm of 50,000 acres or more.
+
+I doubt if any other new region in the world contains a finer or
+sturdier manhood than Rhodesia. Like the land itself it is a stronghold
+of youth. Likewise, no other colony, and for that matter, no other
+matured country exercises such a rigid censorship upon settlers. Until
+the high cost of living disorganized all economic standards, no one
+could establish himself in Rhodesia without a minimum capital of
+L1,000. So far as farming is concerned, this is now increased to
+L2,000. Therefore, you do not see the signs of failure which so
+often dot the semi-virgin landscape. Knowing this, you can understand
+why the immigration inspector gives the incoming travellers a rigid
+cross-examination at the frontier.
+
+Also it is simon-pure British, and more like Natal in this respect than
+any other territory under the Union-jack. I had a convincing
+demonstration in a personal experience. I made a speech at the Bulawayo
+Club. The notice was short but I was surprised to find more than a
+hundred men assembled after dinner, many in evening clothes. Some had
+travelled all day on horseback or in buckboards to get there, others had
+come hundreds of miles by motor car.
+
+I never addressed a more responsive audience. What impressed me was the
+kindling spirit of affection they manifested for the Mother Country. In
+conversation with many of them afterwards it was interesting to hear the
+sons of settlers referring to the England that they had never seen, as
+"home." That night I realized as never before,--not even amid the agony
+and sacrifice of the Somme or the Ancre in France,--one reason why the
+British Empire is great and why, despite all muddling, it carries on. It
+lies in the feeling of imperial kinship far out at the frontiers of
+civilization. The colonial is in many respects a more devoted loyalist
+than the man at home.
+
+Wherever I went I found the Rhodesian agriculturist--and he constitutes
+the bulk of the white population,--essentially modern in his methods. He
+reminds me more of the Kansas farmer than any other alien agriculturists
+that I have met. He uses tractors and does things in a big way. There is
+a trail of gasoline all over the country. Motorcycles have become an
+ordinary means of transport for district officials and engineers, who
+fly about over the native paths that are often the merest tracks. You
+find these machines in the remotest regions. The light motor car is also
+beginning to be looked upon as a necessary part of the outfit of the
+farmer.
+
+There was a time when the average Rhodesian believed that gold was the
+salvation of the country. Repeated "booms" and the inevitable losses
+have brought the people to agree with the opinion of one of the
+pioneers, that "the true wealth of the country lies in the top twelve
+inches of the soil." Agriculture is surpassing mining as the principal
+industry.
+
+The staple agricultural product is maize, which is corn in the American
+phraseology. Until a few years ago the bulk of it was consumed at home.
+Recently, however, on account of the farm expansion, there is an
+increasing surplus for export to the Union of South Africa, the Belgian
+Congo, and even to Europe.
+
+The facts about maize are worth considering. Every year 200,000,000
+bags, each weighing 200 pounds, are consumed throughout the world.
+Heretofore the principal sources of supply have been the Argentine and
+the United States. We have come to the time, however, when we absorb
+practically our whole crop. Formerly we exported about 10,000,000 bags.
+There is no decrease in corn consumption despite prohibition. Hence
+Rhodesia is bound to loom large in the situation. Last year she produced
+more than a million bags. Maize is a crop that revels in sunshine and in
+Rhodesia the sun shines brilliantly throughout the year practically
+without variation. This enables the product to be sun-dried.
+
+Other important crops are tobacco, beans, peanuts (which are invariably
+called monkey nuts in that part of the universe), wheat and oranges.
+Under irrigation, citrus fruits, oats and barley do well.
+
+Cattle are a bulwark of Rhodesian prosperity. The immense pasturage
+areas are reminiscent of Texas and Montana. For a hundred years before
+the white settlers came, the Matabeles and the Mashonas raised live
+stock. The natives still own about 700,000 head, nearly as many as the
+whites. I was interested to find that the British South Africa Company
+has imported a number of Texas ranchmen to act as cattle experts and
+advise the ranchers generally. This is due to a desire to begin a
+competition with the Argentine and the United States in chilled and
+frozen meats. One of the greatest British manufactures of beef extracts
+owns half a dozen ranches in Rhodesia and it is not unlikely that
+American meat men will follow. Mr. J. Ogden Armour is said to be keenly
+interested in the country with the view of expanding the resources of
+the Chicago packers. This is one result of the World War, which has
+caused the producer of food everywhere to bestir himself and insure
+future supplies.
+
+In connection with Rhodesian farming and cattle-raising is a situation
+well worthy of emphasis. There is no labour problem. You find, for
+example, that miracle of miracles which is embodied in a native at work.
+It is in sharp contrast with South Africa and the Congo, where, with
+millions of coloured people it is almost impossible to get help. The
+Rhodesian black still remains outside the leisure class. Whether it is
+due to his fear of the whites or otherwise, he is an active member of
+the productive order.
+
+The native will work for the white man but, save to raise enough maize
+for himself, he will not become an agriculturist. I heard a typical
+story about Lewaniki, Chief of the Barotses, who once ruled a large part
+of what is now Northern Rhodesia. Someone asked him to get his people to
+raise cotton. His answer was:
+
+"What is the use? They cannot eat it."
+
+In Africa the native's world never extends beyond his stomach. I was
+soon to find costly evidence of this in the Congo.
+
+The African native is quite a character. He is not only a born actor but
+has a quaint humor. In the center of the main street at Bulawayo is a
+bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes, bareheaded, and with his face turned
+toward the North. Just as soon as it was unveiled the Matabeles
+expressed considerable astonishment over it. They could not understand
+why the figure never moved. Shortly afterwards a great drought came. A
+native chief went to see the Resident Commissioner and solemnly told him
+that he was quite certain that there would be no rain "until they put a
+hat on Mr. Rhodes' head."
+
+The Lewaniki anecdote reminds me of an admirable epigram that was
+produced in Rhodesia. Out there food is commonly known as "skoff," just
+as "chop" is the equivalent in the Congo. A former Resident
+Commissioner, noted for the keenness of his wit, once asked a travelling
+missionary to dine with him. After the meal the guest insisted upon
+holding a religious service at the table. In speaking of the performance
+the Commissioner said: "My guest came to 'skoff' and remained to pray."
+
+Whenever you visit a new land you almost invariably discover mental
+alertness and progressiveness that often put the older civilizations to
+shame. Let me illustrate. Go to England or France today and you touch
+the really tragic aftermath of the war. You see thousands of demobilized
+officers and men vainly searching for work. Many are reduced to the
+extremity of begging. It has become an acute and poignant problem, that
+is not without its echo over here.
+
+Rhodesia, through the British South Africa Company, is doing its bit
+toward solution. It has set aside 500,000 acres which are being allotted
+free of charge to approved soldier and sailor settlers from overseas.
+Not only are they being given the land but they are provided with expert
+advice and supervision. The former service men who are unable to borrow
+capital with which to exploit the land, are merged into a scheme by
+which they serve an apprenticeship for pay on the established farms and
+ranches until they are able to shift for themselves.
+
+The Chartered Company, despite its political machine, has developed
+Rhodesia "on its own," and in rather striking fashion. It operates
+dairies, gold mines, citrus estates, nurseries, ranches, tobacco
+warehouses, abattoirs, cold storage plants and dams, which insures
+adequate water supply in various sections. It is a profitable example of
+constructive paternalism whose results will be increasingly evident long
+after the famous Charter has passed into history.
+
+No phase of the Company's activities is more important than its
+construction of the Rhodesian railways. They represent a
+double-barrelled private ownership in that they were built and are
+operated by the Company. There are nearly 2,600 miles of track. One
+section of the system begins down at Vryburg in Bechuanaland, where it
+connects with the South African Railways, and extends straight northward
+through Bulawayo and Victoria Falls to the Congo border. The other
+starts at Beira on the Indian Ocean and runs west through Salisbury, the
+capital, to Bulawayo.
+
+These railways have a remarkable statistical distinction in that there
+is one mile of track for every thirteen white inhabitants. No other
+system in the world can duplicate it. The Union of South Africa comes
+nearest with 143 white inhabitants per mile or just eleven times as
+many. Canada has 27, Australia 247, the United States and New Zealand
+400 each, while the United Kingdom has over 200 inhabitants for every
+mile of line.
+
+Rhodesia is highly mineralized. Coal occurs in three areas and one of
+them, Wankie,--a vast field,--is extensively operated. Gold is found
+over the greater part of the country. Here you not only touch an
+American interest but you enter upon the region that Rider Haggard
+introduced to readers as the setting of some of his most famous
+romances. We will deal with the practical side first.
+
+Rhodes had great hopes of Rhodesia as a gold-producing country. He
+wanted the economic value of the country to rank with the political.
+Thousands of years ago the natives dug mines and many of these ancient
+workings are still to be seen. They never exceed forty or fifty feet in
+depth. Many leading authorities claimed that the South Arabians of the
+Kingdom of Saba often referred to in the Bible were the pioneers in the
+Rhodesian gold fields and sold the output to the Phoenicians. Others
+contended that the Phoenicians themselves delved here. Until recently it
+was also maintained by some scientists and Biblical scholars that modern
+Southern Rhodesia was the famed land of Ophir, whence came the gold and
+precious stones that decked the persons and palaces of Solomon and
+David. This, however, has been disproved, and Ophir is still the butt of
+archaeological dispute. It has been "located" in Arabia, Spain, Peru,
+India and South-East Africa.
+
+Rhodes knew all about the old diggings so he engaged John Hays Hammond,
+the American engineer, to accompany him on a trip through Rhodesia in
+1894 and make an investigation of the workings. His report stated that
+the rock mines were undoubtedly ancient, that the greatest skill in
+mining had been displayed and that scores of millions of pounds worth of
+the precious metal had been extracted. It also proved that practically
+all this treasure had been exported from the country for no visible
+traces remain. This substantiates the theory that perhaps it did go to
+the Phoenicians or to a potentate like King Solomon. Hammond wrote the
+mining laws of Rhodesia which are an adaptation of the American code.
+
+The Rhodesian gold mines, which are operated by the Chartered Company
+and by individuals, have never fully realized their promise. One reason,
+so men like Hammond tell me, is that they are over-capitalized and are
+small and scattered. Despite this handicap the country has produced
+L45,227,791 of gold since 1890. The output in 1919 was worth
+L2,500,000. In 1915 it was nearly L4,000,000.
+
+Small diamonds in varying quantities have also been found in Rhodesia.
+In exchange for having subscribed heavily to the first issue of British
+South Africa Company stock, the DeBeers which Rhodes formed received a
+monopoly on the diamond output and with it the assurance of a rigid
+enforcement of the so-called Illicit Diamond Buying Act. This law, more
+commonly known as "I. D. B." and which has figured in many South African
+novels, provided drastic punishment for dishonest dealing in the stones.
+More than one South African millionaire owed the beginnings of his
+fortune to evasion of this law.
+
+Just about the time that Rhodes made the Rhodesian diamond deal a
+prospector came to him and said: "If I bring you a handful of rough
+diamonds what will I get?"
+
+"Fifteen years," was the ready retort. He was never at a loss for an
+answer.
+
+We can now turn to the really romantic side of the Rhodesian mineral
+deposits. One of the favorite pilgrimages of the tourist is to the
+Zimbabwe ruins, located about seventeen miles from Victoria in Southern
+Rhodesia. They are the remains of an ancient city and must at various
+times have been the home of large populations. There seems little doubt
+that Zimbabwe was the work of a prehistoric and long-forgotten people.
+
+Over it hangs a mantle of mystery which the fictionist has employed to
+full, and at times thrilling advantage. In this vicinity were the "King
+Solomon's Mines," that Rider Haggard wrote about in what is perhaps his
+most popular book. Here came "Allan Quartermain" in pursuit of love and
+treasure. The big hill at Zimbabwe provided the residence of "She," the
+lovely and disappearing lady who had to be obeyed. The ruins in the
+valley are supposed to be those of "the Dead City" in the same romance.
+The interesting feature of all this is that "She" and "King Solomon's
+Mines" were written in the early eighties when comparatively nothing was
+known of the country. Yet Rider Haggard, with that instinct which
+sometimes guides the romancer, wrote fairly accurate descriptions of the
+country long before he had ever heard of its actual existence. Thus
+imagination preceded reality.
+
+The imagination miracles disclose in the Haggard books are surpassed by
+the actual wonder represented by Victoria Falls. Everybody has heard of
+this stupendous spectacle in Rhodesia but few people see it because it
+is so far away. I beheld it on my way from Bulawayo to the Congo. Like
+the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, it baffles description.
+
+The first white man to visit the cataract was Dr. Livingstone, who named
+it in honor of his Queen. This was in 1855. For untold years the natives
+of the region had trembled at its fury. They called it _Mois-oa-tunga_,
+which means "Smoke That Sounds." When you see the falls you can readily
+understand why they got this name. The mist is visible ten miles away
+and the terrific roar of the falling waters can be heard even farther.
+
+The fact that the casual traveller can see Victoria Falls from the train
+is due entirely to the foresight and the imagination of Cecil Rhodes. He
+knew the publicity value that the cataract would have for Rhodesia and
+he combined the utilitarian with his love of the romantic. In planning
+the Rhodesian railroad, therefore, he insisted that the bridge across
+the gorge of the Zambesi into which the mighty waters flow after their
+fall, must be sufficiently near to enable the spray to wet the railway
+carriages. The experts said it was impossible but Rhodes had his way,
+just as Harriman's will prevailed over that of trained engineers in the
+construction of the bridge across Great Salt Lake.
+
+The bridge across the Zambesi is a fit mate in audacity to the falls
+themselves. It is the highest in the world for it rises 400 feet above
+the low water level. Its main parabolic arch is a 500 foot span while
+the total length is 650 feet. Although its construction was fraught with
+contrast hazard it only cost two lives, despite the fact that seven
+hundred white men and two thousand natives were employed on it. In the
+building of the Firth of Forth bridge which was much less dangerous,
+more than fifty men were killed.
+
+I first saw the Falls in the early morning when the brilliant African
+sun was turned full on this sight of sights. It was at the end of the
+wet season and the flow was at maximum strength. The mist was so great
+that at first I could scarcely see the Falls. Slowly but defiantly the
+foaming face broke through the veil. Niagara gives you a thrill but this
+toppling avalanche awes you into absolute silence.
+
+The Victoria Falls are exactly twice as broad and two and one-half
+times as high as Niagara Falls. This means that they are over a mile in
+breadth and four hundred and twenty feet high. The tremendous flow has
+only one small outlet about 100 yards wide. The roar and turmoil of this
+world of water as it crashes into the chasm sets up what is well called
+"The Boiling Pot." From this swirling melee the Zambesi rushes with
+unbridled fury through a narrow and deep gorge, extending with many
+windings for forty miles.
+
+In the presence of this marvel, wars, elections, economic upheavals, the
+high cost of living, prohibition,--all "that unrest which men miscall
+delight"--fade into insignificance. Life itself seems a small and
+pitiful thing. You are face to face with a force of Nature that is
+titanic, terrifying, and irresistible.
+
+[Illustration: THE GRAVE OF CECIL RHODES]
+
+
+IV
+
+Since we bid farewell to Cecil Rhodes in this chapter after having
+almost continuously touched his career from the moment we reached
+Capetown, let us make a final measure of his human side,--and he was
+intensely human--particularly with reference to Rhodesia, which is so
+inseparably associated with him. His passion for the country that bore
+his name exceeded his interest in any of his other undertakings. He
+liked the open life of the veldt where he travelled in a sort of gypsy
+wagon and camped for the night wherever the mood dictated. It enabled
+him to gratify his fondness for riding and shooting.
+
+He was always accompanied by a remarkable servant named Tony, a
+half-breed in whom the Portuguese strain predominated. Tony bought his
+master's clothes, paid his bills, and was a court of last resort "below
+stairs." Rhodes declared that his man could produce a satisfactory meal
+almost out of thin air.
+
+Rhodes and Tony were inseparable. Upon one occasion Tony accompanied him
+when he was commanded by Queen Victoria to lodge at Sandringham. While
+there Rhodes asked Tony what time he could get breakfast, whereupon the
+servant replied:
+
+"Royalty does not breakfast, sir, but you can have it in the dining-room
+at half past nine." Tony seemed to know everything.
+
+Throughout Rhodesia I found many of Rhodes' old associates who
+affectionately referred to him as "The Old Man." I was able to collect
+what seemed to be some new Rhodes stories. A few have already been
+related. Here is another which shows his quickness in capitalizing a
+situation.
+
+In the days immediately following the first Matabele war Rhodes had more
+trouble with concession-hunters than with the savages, the Boers, or the
+Portuguese. Nearly every free-lance in the territory produced some fake
+document to which Lobengula's alleged mark was affixed and offered it to
+Rhodes at an excessive price.
+
+One of these gentry framed a plan by which one of the many sons of
+Lobengula was to return to Matabeleland, claim his royal rights, and
+create trouble generally. The whole idea was to start an uprising and
+derange the machinery of the British South Africa Company. The name of
+the son was N'jube and at the time the plan was devised he held a place
+as messenger in the diamond fields at Kimberley. By the system of
+intelligence that he maintained, Rhodes learned of the frame-up, the
+whereabouts of the boy, and furthermore, that he was in love with a
+Fingo girl. These Fingoes were a sort of bastard slave people. Marriage
+into the tribe was a despised thing, and by a native of royal blood,
+meant the abrogation of all his claims to the succession.
+
+Rhodes sent for N'jube and asked him if he wanted to marry the Fingo
+girl. When he replied that he did, the great man said: "Go down to the
+DeBeers office, get L50 and marry the girl. I will then give you a
+job for life and build you a house."
+
+N'jube took the hint and the money and married the girl. Rhodes now sent
+the following telegram to the conspirator at Bulawayo:
+
+"Your friend N'jube was divided between love and empire, but he has
+decided to marry the Fingo girl. It is better that he should settle
+down in Kimberley and be occupied in creating a family than to plot at
+Bulawayo to stab you in the stomach."
+
+This ended the conspiracy, and N'jube lived happily and peacefully ever
+afterwards.
+
+Rhodes was an incorrigible imperialist as this story shows. Upon one
+occasion at Bulawayo he was discussing the Carnegie Library idea with
+his friend and associate, Sir Abe Bailey, a leading financial and
+political figure in the Cape Colony.
+
+"What would you do if you had Carnegie's money?" asked Bailey.
+
+"I wouldn't waste it on libraries," he replied. "I would seize a South
+American Republic and annex it to the United States."
+
+Rhodes had great admiration for America. He once said to Bailey: "The
+greatest thing in the world would be the union of the English-speaking
+people. I wouldn't mind if Washington were the capital." He believed
+implicitly in the invincibility of the Anglo-Saxon race, and he gave his
+life and his fortune to advance the British part of it.
+
+For the last I have reserved the experience that will always rank first
+in my remembrance of Rhodesia. It was my visit to the grave of Rhodes.
+Most people who go to Rhodesia make this pilgrimage, for in the
+well-known tourist language of Mr. Cook, like Victoria Falls, it is "one
+of the things to see." I was animated by a different motive. I had often
+read about it and I longed to view the spot that so eloquently
+symbolized the vision and the imagination of the man I admired.
+
+The grave is about twenty-eight miles from Bulawayo, in the heart of the
+Matopo Hills. You follow the road along which the body was carried
+nineteen years ago. You see the native hut where Rhodes often lived and
+in which the remains rested for the night on the final journey. You pass
+from the green low-lands to the bare frontiers of the rocky domain where
+the Matabeles fled after the second war and where the Father of Rhodesia
+held his historic parleys with them.
+
+Soon the way becomes so difficult that you must leave the motor and
+continue on foot. The Matopos are a wild and desolate range. It is not
+until you are well beyond the granite outposts that there bursts upon
+you an immense open area,--a sort of amphitheatre in which the Druids
+might have held their weird ritual. Directly ahead you see a battlement
+of boulders projected by some immemorial upheaval. Intrenched between
+them is the spot where Rhodes rests and which is marked by a brass plate
+bearing the words: "Here Lie the Remains of Cecil John Rhodes." In his
+will he directed that the site be chosen and even wrote the simple
+inscription for the cover.
+
+When you stand on this eminence and look out on the grim, brooding
+landscape, you not only realize why Rhodes called it "The View of the
+World," but you also understand why he elected to sleep here. The
+loneliness and grandeur of the environment, with its absence of any sign
+of human life and habitation, convey that sense of aloofness which, in a
+man like Rhodes, is the inevitable penalty that true greatness exacts.
+The ages seem to be keeping vigil with his spirit.
+
+For eighteen years Rhodes slept here in solitary state. In 1920 the
+remains of Dr. Jameson were placed in a grave hewn out of the rock and
+located about one hundred feet from the spot where his old friend rests.
+It is peculiarly fitting that these two men who played such heroic part
+in the rise of Rhodesia should repose within a stone's throw of each
+other.
+
+During these last years I have seen some of the great things. They
+included the British Grand Fleet in battle array, Russia at the daybreak
+of democracy, the long travail of Verdun and the Somme, the first
+American flag on the battlefields of France, Armistice Day amid the
+tragedy of war, and all the rest of the panorama that those momentous
+days disclosed. But nothing perhaps was more moving than the silence and
+majesty that invested the grave of Cecil Rhodes. Instinctively there
+came to my mind the lines about him that Kipling wrote in "The Burial":
+
+        It is his will that he look forth
+          Across the world he won--
+        The granite of the ancient North--
+          Great spaces washed with sun.
+
+When I reached the bottom of the long incline on my way out I looked
+back. The sun was setting and those sentinel boulders bulked in the
+dying light. They seemed to incarnate something of the might and power
+of the personality that shaped Rhodesia, and made of it an annex of
+Empire.
+
+[Illustration: A KATANGA COPPER MINE]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV--THE CONGO TODAY
+
+
+I
+
+Unfold the map of Africa and you see a huge yellow area sprawling over
+the Equator, reaching down to Rhodesia on the south-east, and converging
+to a point on the Atlantic Coast. Equal in size to all Latin and
+Teutonic Europe, it is the abode of 6,000 white men and 12,000,000
+blacks. No other section of that vast empire of mystery is so packed
+with hazard and hardship, nor is any so bound up with American
+enterprise. Across it Stanley made his way in two epic expeditions.
+Livingstone gave it the glamour of his spiritualizing influence.
+Fourteen nations stood sponsor at its birth as a Free State and the
+whole world shook with controversy about its administration. Once the
+darkest domain of the Dark Continent, it is still the stronghold of the
+resisting jungle and the last frontier of civilization. It is the
+Belgian Congo.
+
+During these past years the veil has been lifted from the greater part
+of Africa. We are familiar with life and customs in the British, French,
+and to a certain degree, the Portuguese and one-time German colonies.
+But about the land inseparably associated with the economic
+statesmanship of King Leopold there still hangs a shroud of uncertainty
+as to regime and resource. Few people go there and its literature, save
+that which grew out of the atrocity campaign, is meager and
+unsatisfactory. To the vast majority of persons, therefore, the country
+is merely a name--a dab of colour on the globe. Its very distance lends
+enchantment and heightens the lure that always lurks in the unknown.
+What is it like? What is its place in the universal productive scheme?
+What of its future?
+
+I went to the Congo to find out. My journey there was the logical sequel
+to my visit to the Union of South Africa and Rhodesia, which I have
+already described. It seemed a pity not to take a plunge into the region
+that I had read about in the books of Stanley. In my childhood I heard
+him tell the story of some of his African experiences. The man and his
+narrative were unforgettable for he incarnated both the ideal and the
+adventure of journalism. He cast the spell of the Congo River over me
+and I lingered to see this mother of waters. Thus it came about that I
+not only followed Stanley's trail through the heart of Equatorial Africa
+but spent weeks floating down the historic stream, which like the rivers
+that figured in the Great War, has a distinct and definite human
+quality. The Marne, the Meuse, and the Somme are the Rivers of Valour.
+The Congo is the River of Adventure.
+
+In writing, as in everything else, preparedness is all essential. I
+learned the value of carrying proper credentials during the war, when
+every frontier and police official constituted himself a stumbling-block
+to progress. For the South African end of my adventure I provided myself
+with letters from Lloyd George and Smuts. In the Congo I realized that I
+would require equally powerful agencies to help me on my way. Wandering
+through sparsely settled Central Africa with its millions of natives,
+scattered white settlements, and restricted and sometimes primitive
+means of transport, was a far different proposition than travelling in
+the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, or Rhodesia, where there are through
+trains and habitable hotels.
+
+I knew that in the Congo the State was magic, and the King's name one to
+conjure with. Accordingly, I obtained what amounted to an order from the
+Belgian Colonial Office to all functionaries to help me in every
+possible way. This order, I might add, was really a command from King
+Albert, with whom I had an hour's private audience at Brussels before I
+sailed. As I sat in the simple office of the Palace and talked with this
+shy, tall, blonde, and really kingly-looking person, I could not help
+thinking of the last time I saw him. It was at La Panne during that
+terrible winter of 1916-1917, when the Germans were at the high tide of
+their success. The Belgian ruler had taken refuge in this bleak,
+sea-swept corner of Belgium and the only part of the country that had
+escaped the invader. He lived in a little chalet near the beach. Every
+day the King walked up and down on the sands while German aeroplanes
+flew overhead and the roar of the guns at Dixmude smote the ear. He was
+then leading what seemed to be a forlorn hope and he betrayed his
+anxiety in face and speech. Now I beheld him fresh and buoyant, and
+monarch of the only country in Europe that had really settled down to
+work.
+
+King Albert asked me many questions about my trip. He told me of his own
+journey through the Congo in 1908 (he was then Prince Albert), when he
+covered more than a thousand miles on foot. He said that he was glad
+that an American was going to write something about the Congo at first
+hand and he expressed his keen appreciation of the work of American
+capital in his big colony overseas. "I like America and Americans," he
+said, "and I hope that your country will not forget Europe." There was
+a warm clasp of the hand and I was off on the first lap of the journey
+that was to reel off more than twenty-six thousand miles of strenuous
+travel before I saw my little domicile in New York again.
+
+Before we invade the Congo let me briefly outline its history. It can be
+told in a few words although the narrative of its exploitations remains
+a serial without end. Prior to Stanley's memorable journey of
+exploration across Equatorial Africa which he described in "Through the
+Dark Continent," what is now the Congo was a blank spot on the map. No
+white man had traversed it. In the fifties Livingstone had opened up
+part of the present British East Africa and Nyassaland. In the Luapula
+and its tributaries he discovered the headwaters of the Congo River and
+then continued on to Victoria Falls and Rhodesia. After Stanley found
+the famous missionary at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika in 1872, he returned
+to Zanzibar. Hence the broad expanse of Central Africa from Nyassaland
+westward practically remained undiscovered until Stanley crossed it
+between 1874 and 1877, when he travelled from Stanley Falls, where the
+Congo River actually begins, down its expanse to the sea.
+
+As soon as Stanley's articles about the Congo began to appear, King
+Leopold, who was a shrewd business man, saw an opportunity for the
+expansion of his little country. Under his auspices several
+International Committees dedicated to African study were formed. He then
+sent Stanley back to the Congo in 1879, to organize a string of stations
+from the ocean up to Stanley Falls, now Stanleyville. In 1885 the famous
+Berlin Congress of Nations, presided over by Bismarck, recognized the
+Congo Free State, accepted Leopold as its sovereign, and the jungle
+domain took its place among recognized governments. The principal
+purposes animating the founders were the suppression of the slave trade
+and the conversion of the territory into a combined factory and a market
+for all the nations. It was largely due to Belgian initiative that the
+traffic in human beings which denuded all Central Africa of its bone and
+sinew every year, was brought to an end.
+
+The world is more or less familiar with subsequent Congo history. In
+1904 arose the first protest against the so-called atrocities
+perpetrated on the blacks, and the Congo became the center of an
+international dispute that nearly lost Belgium her only colonial
+possession. In the light of the revelations brought about by the Great
+War, and to which I have referred in a previous chapter, it is obvious
+that a considerable part of this crusade had its origin in Germany and
+was fomented by Germanophiles of the type of Sir Roger Casement, who was
+hanged in the Tower of London. During the World War E. D. Morel, his
+principal associate in the atrocity campaign, served a jail sentence in
+England for attempting to smuggle a seditious document into an enemy
+country.
+
+With the atrocity business we are not concerned. The only atrocities
+that I saw in the Congo were the slaughter of my clothes on the native
+washboard, usually a rock, and the American jitney that broke down and
+left me stranded in the Kasai jungle. As a matter of fact, the Belgian
+rule in the Congo has swung round to another extreme, for the Negro
+there has more freedom of movement and less responsibility for action
+than in any other African colony. To round out this brief history, the
+Congo was ceded to Belgium in 1908 and has been a Belgian colony ever
+since.
+
+We can now go on with the journey. From Bulawayo I travelled northward
+for three days past Victoria Falls and Broken Hill, through the
+undeveloped reaches of Northern Rhodesia, where you can sometimes see
+lion-tracks from the car windows, and where the naked Barotses emerge
+from the wilds and stare in big-eyed wonder at the passing trains. Until
+recently the telegraph service was considerably impaired by the
+curiosity of elephants who insisted upon knocking down the poles.
+
+While I was in South Africa alarming reports were published about a
+strike in the Congo and I was afraid that it would interfere with my
+journey. This strike was without doubt one of the most unique in the
+history of all labor troubles. The whole Congo administration "walked
+out," when their request for an increase in pay was refused. The
+strikers included Government agents, railway, telegraph and telephone
+employes, and steamboat captains. Even the one-time cannibals employed
+on all public construction quit work. It was a natural procedure for
+them. Not a wheel turned; no word went over the wires; navigation on the
+rivers ceased. The country was paralyzed. Happily for me it was settled
+before I left Bulawayo.
+
+Late at night I crossed the Congo border and stopped for the customs at
+Sakania. At once I realized the potency that lay in my royal credentials
+for all traffic was tied up until I was expedited. I also got the
+initial surprise of the many that awaited me in this part of the world.
+In the popular mind the Congo is an annex of the Inferno. I can vouch
+for the fact that some sections break all heat records. The air that
+greeted me, however, might have been wafted down from Greenland's icy
+mountain, for I was chilled to the bone. In the flickering light of
+the station the natives shivered in their blankets. The atmosphere was
+anything but tropical yet I was almost within striking distance of the
+Equator. The reason for this frigidity was that I had entered the
+confines of the Katanga, the most healthful and highly developed
+province of the Congo and a plateau four thousand feet above sea level.
+
+[Illustration: LORD LEVERHULME]
+
+[Illustration: ROBERT WILLIAMS]
+
+The next afternoon I arrived at Elizabethville, named for the Queen of
+the Belgians, capital of the province, and center of the copper
+activity. Here I touched two significant things. One was the group of
+American engineers who have developed the technical side of mining in
+the Katanga as elsewhere in the Congo; the other was a contact with the
+industry which produces a considerable part of the wealth of the Colony.
+
+There is a wide impression that the Congo is entirely an agricultural
+country. Although it has unlimited possibilities in this direction, the
+reverse, for the moment, is true. The 900,000 square miles of area (it
+is eighty-eight times the size of Belgium) have scarcely been scraped by
+the hand of man, although Nature has been prodigal in her share of the
+development. Wild rubber, the gathering of which loosed the storm about
+King Leopold's head, is nearly exhausted because of the one-time
+ruthless harvesting. Cotton and coffee are infant industries. The
+principal product of the soil, commercially, is the fruit of the palm
+tree and here Nature again does most of the ground work.
+
+Mining is, in many respects, the chief operation and the Katanga, which
+is really one huge mine, principally copper, is the most prosperous
+region so far as bulk of output is concerned. Since this area figures so
+prominently in the economic annals of the country it is worth more than
+passing attention. Like so many parts of Africa, its exploitation is
+recent. For years after Livingstone planted the gospel there, it
+continued to be the haunt of warlike tribes. The earliest white visitors
+observed that the natives wore copper ornaments and trafficked in a rude
+St. Andrew's cross--it was the coin of the country--fashioned out of
+metal. When prospectors came through in the eighties and nineties they
+found scores of old copper mines which had been worked by the aborigines
+many decades ago. Before the advent of civilization the Katanga blacks
+dealt mainly in slaves and in copper.
+
+The real pioneer of development in the Katanga is an Englishman, Robert
+Williams, a friend and colleague of Cecil Rhodes, and who constructed,
+as you may possibly recall, the link in the Cape-to-Cairo Railway from
+Broken Hill in Northern Rhodesia to the Congo border. He has done for
+Congo copper what Lord Leverhulme has accomplished for palm fruit and
+Thomas F. Ryan for diamonds. Congo progress is almost entirely due to
+alien capital.
+
+Williams, who was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, went out to Africa in 1881
+to take charge of some mining machinery at one of the Kimberley diamond
+mines. Here he met Rhodes and an association began which continued until
+the death of the empire builder. On his death-bed Rhodes asked Williams
+to continue the Cape-to-Cairo project. In the acquiescence to this
+request the Katanga indirectly owes much of its advance. Thus the
+constructive influence of the Colossus of South Africa extends beyond
+the British dominions.
+
+In building the Broken Hill Railway Williams was prompted by two
+reasons. One was to carry on the Rhodes project; the other was to link
+up what he believed to be a whole new mineral world to the needs of
+man. Nor was he working in the dark. Late in the nineties he had sent
+George Grey, a brother of Sir Edward, now Viscount Grey, through the
+present Katanga region on a prospecting expedition. Grey discovered
+large deposits of copper and also tin, lead, iron, coal, platinum, and
+diamonds. Williams now organized the company known as the Tanganyika
+Concessions, which became the instigator of Congo copper mining.
+Subsequently the Union Miniere du Haut Kantanga was formed by leading
+Belgian colonial capitalists and the Tanganyika Concessions acquired
+more than forty per cent of its capital. The Union Miniere took over all
+the concessions and discoveries of the British corporation. The Union
+Miniere is now the leading industrial institution in the Katanga and its
+story is really the narrative of a considerable phase of Congo
+development.
+
+Within ten years it has grown from a small prospecting outfit in the
+wilderness, two hundred and fifty miles from a railway, to an industry
+employing at the time of my visit more than 1,000 white men and 15,000
+blacks. It operates four completely equipped mines which produced nearly
+30,000 tons of copper in 1917, and a smelter with an annual capacity of
+40,000 tons of copper. A concentrator capable of handling 4,000 tons of
+ore per day is nearing completion. This bustling industrial community
+was the second surprise that the Congo disclosed.
+
+Equally remarkable is the mushroom growth of Elizabethville, the one
+wonder town of the Congo. In 1910, when the railway arrived, it was a
+geographical expression,--a spot in the jungle dominated by the huge
+ant-hills that you find throughout Central Africa, some of them forty
+feet high. The white population numbered thirty. I found it a thriving
+place with over 2,000 whites and 12,000 blacks. There are one third as
+many white people in the Katanga Province as in all the rest of the
+Congo combined, and its area is scarcely a fourth of that of the colony.
+
+The father of Elizabethville is General Emile Wangermee, one of the
+picturesque figures in Congo history. He came out in the early days of
+the Free State, fought natives, and played a big part in the settlement
+of the country. He has been Governor-General of the Colony,
+Vice-Governor-General of the Katanga and is now Honorary Vice-Governor.
+In the primitive period he went about, after the Congo fashion, on a
+bicycle, in flannel shirt and leggins and he continued this
+rough-and-ready attire when he became a high-placed civil servant.
+
+Upon one occasion it was announced that the Vice-Governor of the Katanga
+would visit Kambove. The station agent made elaborate preparations for
+his reception. Shortly before the time set for his arrival a man
+appeared on the platform looking like one of the many prospectors who
+frequented the country. The station agent approached him and said, "You
+will have to move on. We are expecting the Vice-Governor of the
+Katanga." The supposed prospector refused to move and the agent
+threatened to use force. He was horrified a few minutes later to find
+his rough customer being received by all the functionaries of the
+district. Wangermee had arrived ahead of time and had not bothered to
+change his clothes.
+
+When I rode in a motor car down Elizabethville's broad, electric-lighted
+avenues and saw smartly-dressed women on the sidewalks, beheld Belgians
+playing tennis on well-laid-out courts on one side, and Englishmen at
+golf on the other, it was difficult to believe that ten years ago this
+was the bush. I lunched in comfortable brick houses and dined at night
+in a club where every man wore evening clothes. I kept saying to myself,
+"Is this really the Congo?" Everywhere I heard English spoken. This was
+due to the large British interest in the Union Miniere and the presence
+of so many American engineers. The Katanga is, with the exception of
+certain palm fruit areas, the bulwark of British interests in the Congo.
+The American domain is the Upper Kasai district.
+
+Conspicuous among the Americans at Elizabethville was Preston K. Horner,
+who constructed the smelter plant and who was made General Manager of
+the Union Miniere in 1913. He spans the whole period of Katanga
+development for he first arrived in 1909. Associated with him were
+various Americans including Frank Kehew, Superintendent of the smelter,
+Thomas Carnahan, General Superintendent of Mines, Daniel Butner,
+Superintendent of the Kambove Mine, the largest of the Katanga group,
+Thomas Yale, who is in charge of the construction of the immense
+concentration plant at Likasi, and A. Brooks, Manager of the Western
+Mine. For some years A. E. Wheeler, a widely-known American engineer,
+has been Consulting Engineer of the Union Miniere, with Frederick Snow
+as assistant. Since my return from Africa Horner has retired as General
+Manager and Wheeler has become the ranking American. Practically all the
+Yankee experts in the Katanga are graduates of the Anaconda or Utah
+Mines.
+
+With Horner I travelled by motor through the whole Katanga copper belt.
+I visited, first of all, the famous Star of the Congo Mine, eight miles
+from Elizabethville, and which was the cornerstone of the entire metal
+development. Next came the immense excavation at Kambove where I watched
+American steam shovels in charge of Americans, gouging the copper ore
+out of the sides of the hills. I saw the huge concentrating plant rising
+almost like magic out of the jungle at Likasi. Here again an American
+was in control. At Fungurume I spent the night in a native house in the
+heart of one of the loveliest of valleys whose verdant walls will soon
+be gashed by shovels and discoloured with ore oxide. Over all the area
+the Anglo-Saxon has laid his galvanizing hand. One reason is that there
+are few Belgian engineers of large mining experience. Another is that
+the American, by common consent, is the one executive who gets things
+done in the primitive places.
+
+I cannot leave the Congo copper empire without referring to another
+Robert Williams achievement which is not without international
+significance. Like other practical men of affairs with colonial
+experience, he realized long before the outbreak of the Great War
+something of the extent and menace of the German ambition in Africa. As
+I have previously related, the Kaiser blocked his scheme to run the
+Cape-to-Cairo Railway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Kivu, after King
+Leopold had granted him the concession. Williams wanted to help Rhodes
+and he wanted to help himself. His chief problem was to get the copper
+from the Katanga to Europe in the shortest possible time. Most of it is
+refined in England and Belgium. At present it goes out by way of
+Bulawayo and is shipped from the port of Beira in Portuguese East
+Africa. This involves a journey of 9,514 miles from Kambove to London.
+How was this haul to be shortened through an agency that would be proof
+against the German intrigue and ingenuity?
+
+[Illustration: ON THE LUALABA]
+
+[Illustration: A VIEW ON THE KASAI]
+
+Williams cast his eye over Africa. On the West Coast he spotted Lobito
+Bay, a land-locked harbour twenty miles north of Benguella, one of the
+principal parts of Angola, a Portuguese colony. From it he ran a line
+straight from Kambove across the wilderness and found that it covered a
+distance of approximately 1,300 miles. He said to himself, "This is the
+natural outlet of the Katanga and the short-cut to England and Belgium."
+He got a concession from the Portuguese Government and work began. The
+Germans tried in every way to block the project for it interfered with
+their scheme to "benevolently" assimilate Angola.
+
+At the time of my visit to the Congo three hundred and twenty miles of
+the Benguella Railway, as it is called, had been constructed and a
+section of one hundred miles or more was about to be started. The line
+will pass through Ruwe, which is an important center of gold production
+in the Katanga, and connect up with the Katanga Railway just north of
+Kambove. It is really a link in the Cape-to-Cairo system and when
+completed will shorten the freight haul from the copper fields to London
+by three thousand miles, as compared with the present Biera itinerary.
+
+There is every indication that the Katanga will justify the early
+confidence that Williams had in it and become one of the great
+copper-producing centers of the world. Experts with whom I have talked
+in America believe that it can in time reach a maximum output of 150,000
+tons a year. The ores are of a very high grade and since the Union
+Miniere owns more than one hundred mines, of which only six or seven are
+partially developed, the future seems safe.
+
+Copper is only one phase of the Katanga mineral treasure. Coal, iron,
+and tin have not only been discovered in quantity but are being mined
+commercially. Oil-shale is plentiful on the Congo River near
+Ponthierville and good indications of oil are recorded in other places.
+The discovery of oil in Central Africa would have a great influence on
+the development of transportation since it would supply fuel for
+steamers, railways, and motor transport. There is already a big oil
+production in Angola and there is little doubt that an important field
+awaits development in the Congo.
+
+It is not generally realized that Africa today produces the three most
+valuable of all known minerals in the largest quantities, or has the
+biggest potentialities. The Rand yields more than fifty per cent of the
+entire gold supply and ranks as the most valuable of all gold fields.
+Ninety-five per cent of the diamond output comes from the Kimberley and
+associated mines, German South-West Africa, and the Congo. The Katanga
+contains probably the greatest reserve of copper in existence. Now you
+can see why the eye of the universe is being focused on this region.
+
+
+II
+
+When I left Elizabethville I bade farewell to the comforts of life. I
+mean, for example, such things as ice, bath-tubs, and running water.
+There is enough water in the Congo to satisfy the most ardent teetotaler
+but unfortunately it does not come out of faucets. Most of it flows in
+rivers, but very little of it gets inside the population, white or
+otherwise.
+
+Speaking of water brings to mind one of the useful results of such a
+trip as mine. Isolation in the African wilds gives you a new
+appreciation of what in civilization is regarded as the commonplace
+things. Take the simple matter of a hair-cut. There are only two barbers
+in the whole Congo. One is at Elizabethville and the other at Kinshassa,
+on the Lower Congo, nearly two thousand miles away. My locks were not
+shorn for seven weeks. I had to do what little trimming there was done
+with a safety razor and it involved quite an acrobatic feat. Take
+shaving. The water in most of the Congo rivers is dirty and full of
+germs. More than once I lathered my face with mineral water out of a
+bottle. The Congo River proper is a muddy brown. For washing purposes it
+must be treated with a few tablets of permanganate of potassium which
+colours it red. It is like bathing in blood.
+
+Since my journey from Katanga onward was through the heart of Africa,
+perhaps it may be worth while to tell briefly of the equipment required
+for such an expedition. Although I travelled for the most part in the
+greatest comfort that the Colony afforded, it was necessary to prepare
+for any emergency. In the Congo you must be self-sufficient and
+absolutely independent of the country. This means that you carry your
+own bed and bedding (usually a folding camp-bed), bath-tub, food,
+medicine-chest, and cooking utensils.
+
+No detail was more essential than the mosquito net under which I slept
+every night for nearly four months. Insects are the bane of Africa. The
+mosquito carries malaria, and the tsetse fly is the harbinger of that
+most terrible of diseases, sleeping sickness. Judging from personal
+experience nearly every conceivable kind of biting bug infests the
+Congo. One of the most tenacious and troublesome of the little visitors
+is the jigger, which has an uncomfortable habit of seeking a soft spot
+under the toe-nail. Once lodged it is extremely difficult to get him
+out. These pests are mainly found in sandy soil and give the Negroes who
+walk about barefooted unending trouble.
+
+No less destructive is the dazzling sun. Five minutes exposure to it
+without a helmet means a prostration and twenty minutes spells death.
+Stanley called the country so inseparably associated with his name
+"Fatal Africa," but he did not mean the death that lay in the murderous
+black hand. He had in mind the thousand and one dangers that beset the
+stranger who does not observe the strictest rules of health and diet.
+From the moment of arrival the body undergoes an entirely new
+experience. Men succumb because they foolishly think they can continue
+the habits of civilization. Alcohol is the curse of all the hot
+countries. The wise man never takes a drink until the sun sets and then,
+if he continues to be wise, he imbibes only in moderation. The morning
+"peg" and the lunch-time cocktail have undermined more health in the
+tropics than all the flies and mosquitoes combined.
+
+The Duke of Wellington recommended a formula for India which may well be
+applied to the Congo. The doughty old warrior once said:
+
+    I know but one recipe for good health in this country, and that is
+    to live moderately, to drink little or no wine, to use exercise, to
+    keep the mind employed, and, if possible, to keep in good humour
+    with the world. The last is the most difficult, for as you have
+    often observed, there is scarcely a good-tempered man in India.
+
+If a man will practice moderation in all things, take five grains of
+quinine every day, exercise whenever it is possible, and keep his body
+clean, he has little to fear from the ordinary diseases of a country
+like the Congo. It is one of the ironies of civilization that after
+passing unscathed through all the fever country, I caught a cold the
+moment I got back to steam-heat and all the comforts of home.
+
+No one would think of using ordinary luggage in the Congo. Everything
+must be packed and conveyed in metal boxes similar to the uniform cases
+used by British officers in Egypt and India. This is because the white
+ant is the prize destroyer of property throughout Africa. He cuts
+through leather and wood with the same ease that a Southern Negro's
+teeth lacerate watermelon. Leave a pair of shoes on the ground over
+night and you will find them riddled in the morning. These ants eat away
+floors and sometimes cause the collapse of houses by wearing away the
+wooden supports. Another frequent guest is the driver ant, which travels
+in armies and frequently takes complete possession of a house. It
+destroys all the vermin but the human inmates must beat a retreat while
+the process goes on.
+
+Since my return many people have asked me what books I read in the
+Congo. The necessity for them was apparent. I had more than three months
+of constant travelling, often alone, and for the most part on small
+river boats where there is no deck space for exercise. Mail arrives
+irregularly and there were no newspapers. After one or two days the
+unceasing panorama of tropical forests, native villages, and naked
+savages becomes monotonous. Even the hippopotami which you see in large
+numbers, the omnipresent crocodile, and the occasional wild elephant,
+cease to amuse. You are forced to fall back on that unfailing friend and
+companion, a good book.
+
+I therefore carried with me the following books in handy volume
+size:--Montaigne's Essays, Palgrave's Golden Treasury of English Verse,
+Lockhart's Life of Napoleon, Autobiography of Cellini, Don Quixote, The
+Three Musketeers, Lorna Doone, Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and The
+Conquest of Peru, Les Miserables, Vanity Fair, Life and Writings of
+Benjamin Franklin, Pepys' Diary, Carlyle's French Revolution, The Last
+of the Mohicans, Westward Ho, Bleak House, The Pickwick Papers, A Tale
+of Two Cities, and Tolstoi's War and Peace. When these became exhausted
+I was hard put for reading matter. At a post on the Kasai River the only
+English book I could find was Arnold Bennett's The Pretty Lady, which
+had fallen into the hands of an official, who was trying to learn
+English with it. It certainly gave him a hectic start.
+
+Then, too, there was the eternal servant problem, no less vexing in that
+land of servants than elsewhere. I had cabled to Horner to engage me two
+personal servants or "boys" as they are called in Africa. When I got
+to Elizabethville I found that he had secured two. In addition to
+Swahili, the main native tongue in those parts, one spoke English and
+the other French, the official language in the Congo. I did not like the
+looks of the English-speaking barbarian so I took a chance on Number
+Two, whose name was Gerome. He was a so-called "educated" native. I was
+to find from sad experience that his "education" was largely in the
+direction of indolence and inefficiency. I thought that by having a boy
+with whom I had to speak French I could improve my command of the
+language. Later on I realized my mistake because my French is a
+non-conductor of profanity.
+
+[Illustration: A STATION SCENE AT KONGOLA]
+
+Gerome had a wife. In the Congo, where all wives are bought, the consort
+constitutes the husband's fortune, being cook, tiller of the ground,
+beast-of-burden and slave generally. I had no desire to incumber myself
+with this black Venus, so I made Gerome promise that he would not take
+her along. I left him behind at Elizabethville, for I proceeded to
+Fungurume with Horner by automobile. He was to follow by train with my
+luggage and have the private car, which I had chartered for the journey
+to Bukama, ready for me on my arrival. When I showed up at Fungurume the
+first thing I saw was Gerome's wife, with her ample proportions swathed
+in scarlet calico, sunning herself on the platform of the car. He could
+not bring himself to cook his own food although willing enough to cook
+mine.
+
+I paid Gerome forty Belgian francs a month, which, at the rate of
+exchange then prevailing, was considerably less than three dollars. I
+also had to give him a weekly allowance of five francs (about thirty
+cents) for his food. To the American employer of servants these figures
+will be somewhat illuminating and startling.
+
+One more human interest detail before we move on. In Africa every white
+man gets a name from the natives. This appellation usually expresses his
+chief characteristic. The first title fastened on me was "_Bwana Cha
+Cha_," which means "The Master Who is Quick." When I first heard this
+name I thought it was a reflection on my appetite because "_Cha Cha_" is
+pronounced "Chew Chew." Subsequently, in the Upper Congo and the Kasai I
+was called "_Mafutta Mingi_," which means "Much Fat." I must explain in
+self-defense that in the Congo I ate much more than usual, first because
+something in the atmosphere makes you hungry, and second, a good
+appetite is always an indication of health in the tropics.
+
+Still another name that I bore was "_Tala Tala_," which means spectacles
+in practically all the Congo dialects. There are nearly two hundred
+tribes and each has a distinctive tongue. In many sections that I
+visited the natives had never seen a pair of tortoise shell glasses such
+as I wear during the day. The children fled from me shrieking in terror
+and thinking that I was a sorcerer. Even gifts of food, the one
+universal passport to the native heart, failed to calm their fears.
+
+The Congo native, let me add, is a queer character. The more I saw of
+him, the greater became my admiration for King Leopold. In his present
+state the only rule must be a strong rule. No one would ever think of
+thanking a native for a service. It would be misunderstood because the
+black man out there mistakes kindness for weakness. You must be firm but
+just. Now you can see why explorers, upon emerging from long stays in
+the jungle, appear to be rude and ill-mannered. It is simply because
+they had to be harsh and at times unfeeling, and it becomes a habit.
+Stanley, for example, was often called a boor and a brute when in
+reality he was merely hiding a fine nature behind the armour necessary
+to resist native imposition and worse.
+
+
+III
+
+The private car on which I travelled from Fungurume to Bukama was my
+final taste of luxury. When Horner waved me a good-bye north I realized
+that I was divorcing myself from comfort and companionship. In thirty
+hours I was in sun-scorched Bukama, the southern rail-head of the
+Cape-to-Cairo Route and my real jumping-off place before plunging into
+the mysteries of Central Africa.
+
+Here begins the historic Lualaba, which is the initial link in the
+almost endless chain of the Congo River. I at once went aboard the first
+of the boats which were to be my habitation intermittently for so many
+weeks. It was the "Louis Cousin," a 150-ton vessel and a fair example of
+the draft which provides the principal means of transportation in the
+Congo. Practically all transit not on the hoof, so to speak, in the
+Colony is by water. There are more than twelve thousand miles of rivers
+navigable for steamers and twice as many more accessible for canoes and
+launches. Hence the river-boat is a staple, and a picturesque one at
+that.
+
+The "Louis Cousin" was typical of her kind both in appointment, or
+rather the lack of it, and human interest details. Like all her sisters
+she resembles the small Ohio River boats that I had seen in my boyhood
+at Louisville. All Congo steam craft must be stern-wheelers, first
+because they usually haul barges on either side, and secondly because
+there are so many sand-banks. The few cabins--all you get is the bare
+room--are on the upper deck, which is the white man's domain, while the
+boiler and freight--human and otherwise--are on the lower. This is the
+bailiwick of the black. These boats always stop at night for wood, the
+only fuel, and the natives are compelled to go ashore and sleep on the
+bank.
+
+The Congo river-boat is a combination of fortress, hotel, and menagerie.
+Like the "accommodation" train in our own Southern States, it is most
+obliging because it will stop anywhere to enable a passenger to get off
+and do a little shopping, or permit the captain to take a meal ashore
+with a friendly State official yearning for human society.
+
+The river captain is a versatile individual for he is steward, doctor,
+postman, purveyor of news, and dictator in general. He alone makes the
+schedule of each trip, arriving and departing at will. Time in the Congo
+counts for naught. It is in truth the land of leisure. For the man who
+wants to move fast, water travel is a nightmare. Accustomed as I was to
+swift transport, I spent a year every day.
+
+The skipper of the "Louis Cousin" was no exception to his kind.
+He was a big Norwegian named Behn,--many of his colleagues are
+Scandinavians,--and he had spent eighteen years in the Congo. He knew
+every one of the thousand nooks, turns, snags and sand-bars of the
+Lualaba. One of the first things that impressed me was the uncanny
+ingenuity with which all the Congo boats are navigated through what
+seems at first glance to be a mass of vegetation and obstruction.
+
+The bane of traffic is the sand-bar, which on account of the swift
+currents everywhere, is an eternally changing quantity. Hence a native
+is constantly engaged in taking soundings with a long stick. You can
+hear his not unmusical voice, from the moment the boat starts until she
+ties up for the night. The native word for water is "_mia_." Whenever I
+heard the cry "_mia mitani_," I knew that we were all right because that
+meant five feet of water. With the exception of the Congo River no boat
+can draw more than three feet because in the dry season even the
+mightiest of streams declines to an almost incredibly low level.
+
+My white fellow passengers on the "Louis Cousin" were mostly Belgians on
+their way home by way of Stanleyville and the Congo River, after years
+of service in the Colony. We all ate together in the tiny dining saloon
+forward with the captain, who usually provides the "chop," as it is
+called. I now made the acquaintance of goat as an article of food. The
+young nanny is not undesirable as an occasional novelty but when she is
+served up to you every day, it becomes a trifle monotonous.
+
+The one rival of the goat in the Congo daily menu is the chicken, the
+mainstay of the country. I know a man who spent six years in the Congo
+and he kept a record of every fowl he consumed. When he started for home
+the total registered exactly three thousand. It is no uncommon
+experience. Occasionally a friendly hunter brought antelope or buffalo
+aboard but goat and fowl, reinforced by tinned goods and an occasional
+egg, constituted the bill of fare. You may wonder, perhaps, that in a
+country which is a continuous chicken-coop, there should be a scarcity
+of eggs. The answer lies in the fact that during the last few years the
+natives have conceived a sudden taste for eggs. Formerly they were
+afraid to eat them.
+
+Of course, there was always an abundance of fruit. You can get
+pineapples, grape fruit, oranges, bananas and a first cousin of the
+cantaloupe, called the _pei pei_, which when sprinkled with lime juice
+is most delicious. Bananas can be purchased for five cents a bunch of
+one hundred. It is about the only cheap thing in the Congo except
+servants.
+
+[Illustration: A NATIVE MARKET AT KINDU]
+
+Not all my fellow passengers were desirable companions. At Bukana five
+naked savages, all chained together by the neck, were brought aboard in
+charge of three native soldiers. When I asked the captain who and what
+they were he replied, "They are cannibals. They ate two of their fellow
+tribesmen back in the jungle last week and they are going down the river
+to be tried." These were the first eaters of human flesh that I saw in
+the Congo. One conspicuous detail was their teeth which were all filed
+down to sharp points. I later discovered that these wolf teeth, as they
+might be called, are common to all the Congo cannibals. The punishment
+for cannibalism is death, although every native, whatever his offence,
+is given a trial by the Belgian authorities.
+
+So far as employing the white man as an article of diet is concerned,
+cannibalism has ceased in the Congo. Some of the tribes, however, still
+regard the flesh of their own kind as the last word in edibles. The
+practice must be carried on in secret. To have partaken of the human
+body has long been regarded as an act which endows the consumer with
+almost supernatural powers. The cannibal has always justified his
+procedure in a characteristic way. When the early explorers and
+missionaries protested against the barbarous performance they were
+invariably met with this reply, "You eat fowl and goats and we eat men.
+What is the difference?" There seems to have been a particular lure in
+what the native designated as "food that once talked."
+
+In the days when cannibalism was rampant, the liver of the white man was
+looked upon as a special delicacy for the reason that it was supposed to
+transmit the knowledge and courage of its former owner. There was also a
+tradition that once having eaten the heart of the white, no harm could
+come to the barbarian who performed this amiable act. Although these
+odious practices have practically ceased except in isolated instances,
+the Congo native, in boasting of his strength, constantly speaks of his
+liver, and not of his heart.
+
+It was on the Lualaba, after the boat had tied up for the night, that I
+caught the first whisper of the jungle. In Africa Nature is in her
+frankest mood but she expresses herself in subdued tones. All my life I
+had read of the witchery of these equatorial places, but no description
+is ever adequate. You must live with them to catch the magic. No
+painter, for instance, can translate to canvas the elusive and
+ever-changing verdure of the dense forests under the brilliant tropical
+sun, nor can those elements of mystery with their suggestion of wild
+bird and beast that lurk everywhere at night, be reproduced. Life flows
+on like a moving dream that is exotic, enervating, yet intoxicating.
+
+Accustomed as I was to dense populations, the loneliness of the Lualaba
+was weird and haunting. On the Mississippi, Ohio, and Hudson rivers in
+America and on the Seine, the Thames, and the Spree in Europe, you see
+congested human life and hear a vast din. In Africa, and with the
+possible exception of some parts of the Nile, Nature reigns with almost
+undisputed sway. Settlements appear at rare intervals. You only
+encounter an occasional native canoe. The steamers frequently tie up at
+night at some sand-bank and you fall asleep invested by an uncanny
+silence.
+
+I spent six days on the Lualaba where we made many stops to take on and
+put off freight. Many of these halts were at wood-posts where our supply
+of fuel was renewed. At one post I found a lonely Scotch trader who had
+been in the Congo fifteen years. Every night he puts on his kilts and
+parades through the native village playing the bagpipes. It is his one
+touch with home. At another place I had a brief visit with another
+Scotchman, a veteran of the World War, who had established a prosperous
+plantation and who goes about in a khaki kilt, much to the joy of the
+natives, who see in his bare knees a kinship with themselves.
+
+At Kabalo I touched the war zone. This post marks the beginning of the
+railway that runs eastward to Lake Tanganyika and which Rhodes included
+in one of his Cape-to-Cairo routes. Along this road travelled the
+thousands of Congo fighting men on their way to the scene of hostilities
+in German East Africa.
+
+When the Great War broke out the Belgian Colonial Government held that
+the Berlin Treaty of 1885, entitled "A General Act Relating to
+Civilization in Africa" and prohibiting warfare in the Congo basin,
+should be enforced. This treaty gave birth to the Congo Free State and
+made it an international and peaceful area under Belgian sovereignty.
+Following their usual fashion the Germans looked upon this document as a
+"scrap of paper" and attached Lukuga. This forced the Belgian Congo into
+the conflict. About 20,000 native troops were mobilized and under the
+command of General Tambeur, who is now Vice-Governor General of the
+Katanga, co-operated with the British throughout the entire East African
+campaign. The Belgians captured Tabora, one of the German strongholds,
+and helped to clear the Teuton out of the country.
+
+Lake Tanganyika was the scene of one of the most brilliant and
+spectacular naval battles of the war. Two British motor launches, which
+were conveyed in sections all the way from England, sank a German
+gunboat and disabled another, thus purging those waters of the German.
+The lake was of great strategic importance for the transport of food and
+munitions for the Allied troops in German East Africa. It is one of the
+loveliest inland bodies of water in the world for it is fringed with
+wooded heights and is navigable throughout its entire length of four
+hundred miles. Ujiji, on its eastern shore, is the memorable spot where
+Stanley found Livingstone. The house where the illustrious missionary
+lived still stands, and is an object of veneration both for black and
+white visitors.
+
+From Kabalo I proceeded to Kongolo, where navigation on the Lualaba
+temporarily ends. It is the usual Congo settlement with the official
+residence of the Commissaire of the District, office of the Native
+Commissioner, and a dozen stores. It is also the southern rail-head of
+the Chemin de Fer Grands Lacs, which extends to Stanleyville. Early in
+the morning I boarded what looked to me like a toy train, for it was
+tinier than any I had ever seen before, and started for Kindu. The
+journey occupies two days and traverses a highly Arabized section.
+
+Back in the days when Tippo Tib, the friend of Stanley, was king of the
+Arab slave traders, this area was his hunting ground. Many of the
+natives are Mohammedans and wear turbans and long flowing robes. Their
+cleanliness is in sharp contrast with the lack of sanitary precautions
+observed by the average unclothed native. The only blacks who wash every
+day in the Congo are those who live on the rivers. The favorite method
+of cleansing in the bush country is to scrape off a week's or a month's
+accumulation of mud with a stick or a piece of glass.
+
+In the Congo the trains, like the boats, stop for the night. Various
+causes are responsible for the procedure. In the early days of
+railroading elephants and other wild animals frequently tore up the
+tracks. Another contributory reason is that the carriages are only built
+for day travel. Native houses are provided for the traveller at
+different points on the line. Since everyone carries his own bed it is
+easy to establish sleeping quarters without delay or inconvenience. On
+this particular trip I slept at Malela, in the house ordinarily occupied
+by the Chief Engineer of the line. The Minister of the Colonies had used
+it the night before and it was scrupulously clean. I must admit that I
+have had greater discomfort in metropolitan hotels.
+
+I was now in the almost absolute domain of the native. The only white
+men that I encountered were an occasional priest and a still more
+occasional trader. At Kibombo the train stopped for the mail. When I got
+out to stretch my legs I saw a man and a woman who looked unmistakably
+American. The man had Texas written all over him for he was tall and
+lank and looked as if he had spent his life on the ranges. He came
+toward me smiling and said, "The Minister of the Colonies was through
+here yesterday in a special train and he said that an American
+journalist was following close behind, so I came down to see you." The
+man proved to be J. G. Campbell, who had come to install an American
+cotton gin nine kilometers from where we were standing. His wife was
+with him and she was the only white woman within two hundred miles.
+
+Campbell is a link with one of the new Congo industries, which is cotton
+cultivation. The whole area between Kongolo and Stanleyville,
+three-fourths of which is one vast tropical forest, has immense
+stretches ideally adapted for cotton growing. The Belgian Government has
+laid out experimental plantations and they are thriving. In 1919 four
+thousand acres were cultivated in the Manyema district, six thousand in
+the Sankuru-Kasai region, and six hundred in the Lomami territory.
+Altogether the Colony produced 6,000,000 pounds of the raw staple in
+1920 and some of it was grown by natives who are being taught the art.
+The Congo Cotton Company has been formed at Brussels with a
+capitalization of 6,000,000 francs, to exploit the new industry, which
+is bound to be an important factor in the development of the Congo. It
+shows that the ruthless exploitation of the earlier days is succeeded by
+scientific and constructive expansion.
+
+Campbell's experience in setting up his American gin discloses the
+principal need of the Congo today which is adequate transport. Between
+its arrival at the mouth of the Congo River and Kibombo the mass of
+machinery was trans-shipped exactly four times, alternately changing
+from rail to river. At Kibombo the 550,000 pounds of metal had to be
+carried on the heads of natives to the scene of operations. In the Congo
+practically every ton of merchandise must be moved by man power--the
+average load is sixty pounds--through the greater part of its journey.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the day which marked the encounter with the
+Campbells I reached Kindu, where navigation on the Lualaba is resumed
+again. By this time you will have realized something of the difficulty
+of travelling in this part of the world. It was my third change since
+Bukama and more were to come before I reached the Lower Congo.
+
+[Illustration: NATIVE FISH TRAPS AT STANLEY FALLS]
+
+At Kindu I had a rare piece of luck. I fell in with Louis Franck, the
+Belgian Minister of the Colonies, to whom I had a letter of
+introduction, and who was making a tour of inspection of the Congo. He
+had landed at Mombassa, crossed British East Africa, visited the new
+Belgian possessions of Urundi and Ruanda which are spoils of war, and
+made his way to Kabalo from Lake Tanganyika. He asked me to accompany
+him to Stanleyville as his guest. I gladly accepted because, aside from
+the personal compensation afforded by his society, it meant immunity
+from worry about the river and train connections.
+
+Franck represents the new type of Colonial Minister. Instead of being a
+musty bureaucrat, as so many are, he is a live, alert progressive man of
+affairs who played a big part in the late war. To begin with, he is one
+of the foremost admiralty lawyers of Europe. When the Germans occupied
+Belgium he at once became conspicuous. He resisted the Teutonic scheme
+to separate the French and Flemish sections of the ravaged country.
+After the investment of Antwerp, his native place, accompanied by the
+Burgomaster and the Spanish Minister, he went to the German Headquarters
+and made the arrangement by which the city was saved from destruction by
+bombardment. He delayed this parley sufficiently to enable the Belgian
+Army to escape to the Yser. Subsequently his activities on behalf of his
+countrymen made him so distasteful to the Germans that he was imprisoned
+in Germany for nearly a year. For two months of this time he shared the
+noble exile of Monsieur Max, the heroic Burgomaster of Brussels.
+
+I now became an annex of what amounted to a royal progress. To the
+Belgian colonial official and to the native, Franck incarnated a sort of
+All Highest. In the Congo all functionaries are called "Bula Matadi,"
+which means "The Rock Breaker." It is the name originally bestowed on
+Stanley when he dynamited a road through the rocks of the Lower Congo.
+Franck, however, was a super "Bula Matadi." We had a special boat, the
+"Baron Delbecke," a one hundred ton craft somewhat similar to the "Louis
+Cousin" but much cleaner, for she had been scrubbed up for the journey.
+The Minister, his military aide, secretary and doctor filled the cabins,
+so I slept in a tent set up on the lower deck.
+
+With flags flying and thousands of natives on the shore yelling and
+beating tom-toms, we started down the Lualaba. The country between Kindu
+and Ponthierville, our first objective, is thickly populated and
+important settlements dot the banks. Wherever we stopped the native
+troops were turned out and there were long speeches of welcome from the
+local dignitaries. Franck shook as many black and white hands as an
+American Presidential candidate would in a swing around the circle. I
+accompanied him ashore on all of these state visits and it gave me an
+excellent opportunity to see the many types of natives in their Sunday
+clothes, which largely consist of no clothes at all. This applies
+especially to the female sex, which in the Congo reverses Kipling's
+theory because they are less deadly than the male.
+
+At Lowa occurred a significant episode. This place is the center of an
+immense native population, but there is only one white resident, the
+usual Belgium state official. We climbed the hill to his house, where
+thirty of the leading chiefs, wearing the tin medal which the Belgian
+Government gives them, shook hands with the Minister. The ranking chief,
+distinguished by the extraordinary amount of red mud in his wool and the
+grotesque devices cut with a knife on his body, made a long speech in
+which he became rather excited. When the agent translated this in French
+to Franck I gathered that the people were indignant over the advance in
+cost of trade goods, especially salt and calico. Salt is more valuable
+than gold in the Congo. Among the natives it is legal tender for every
+commodity from a handkerchief to a wife.
+
+Franck made a little speech in French in reply--it was translated by the
+interpreter--in which he said that the Great War had increased the price
+of everything. We shook hands all round and there was much muttering of
+"yambo," the word for "greeting," and headed for the boat.
+
+Halfway down the hill we heard shouting and hissing. We stopped and
+looked back. On the crest were a thousand native women, jeering,
+hooting, and pointing their fingers at the Minister, who immediately
+asked the cause of the demonstration. When the agent called for an
+explanation a big black woman said:
+
+"Ask the 'Bula Matadi' why the franc buys so little now? We only get a
+few goods for a big lot of money."
+
+I had gone into the wilds to escape from economic unrest and all the
+confusion that has followed in its wake, yet here in the heart of
+Central Africa, I found our old friend the High Cost of Living working
+overtime and provoking a spirited protest from primitive savages! It
+proves that there is neither caste, creed nor colour-line in the
+pocket-book. Like indigestion, to repeat Mr. Pinero, it is the universal
+leveller of all ranks.
+
+
+IV
+
+On this trip Franck outlined to me his whole colonial creed. It was a
+gorgeous June morning and we had just left a particularly picturesque
+Arabized village behind us. Hundreds of natives had come out to welcome
+the Minister in canoes. They sang songs and played their crude musical
+instruments as they swept alongside our boat. We now sat on the upper
+deck and watched the unending panorama of palm trees with here and there
+a clump of grass huts.
+
+"All colonial development is a chain which is no stronger than its
+weakest link and that is the native," said the Minister. "As you build
+the native, so do you build the whole colonial structure. Hence the
+importance of a high moral standard. You must conform to the native's
+traditions, mentality and temperament. Give him a technical education
+something like that afforded by Booker Washington's Tuskegee Institute.
+Show him how to use his hands. He will then become efficient and
+therefore contented. It is a mistake to teach him a European language. I
+prefer him to be a first-class African rather than third-class European.
+
+"The hope of the Congo lies in industrialization on the one hand, and
+the creation of new wealth on the other. By new wealth I mean such new
+crops as cotton and a larger exploitation of such old products as rice
+and palm fruit. Rubber has become a second industry although the
+cultivated plantations are in part taking the place of the old wild
+forests. The substitute for rubber as the first product of the land is
+the fruit of the oil palm tree. This will be the industrial staple of
+the Congo. I believe, however, that in time cotton can be produced in
+large commercial quantities over a wide area."
+
+Franck now turned to a subject which reflects his courage and
+progressiveness. He said, "There is a strong tendency in other Colonies
+to give too large a place to State enterprise. The result of this system
+is that officers are burdened with an impossible task. They must look
+after the railways, steamers, mills, and a variety of tasks for which
+they often lack the technical knowledge.
+
+"I have made it a point to give first place to private enterprise and to
+transfer those activities formerly under State rule to autonomous
+enterprises in which the State has an interest. They are run by business
+men along business lines as business institutions. The State's principal
+function in them is to protect the native employes. The gold mines at
+Kilo are an example. They are still owned by the State but are worked by
+a private company whose directors have full powers. The reason why the
+State does not part with its ownership of these mines is that it does
+not want a rush of gold-seekers. History has proved that in a country
+with a primitive population a gold rush is a dangerous and destructive
+thing.
+
+"We are always free traders in Belgium and we are glad to welcome any
+foreign capital to the Congo. We have already had the constructive
+influence of American capital in the diamond fields and we will be glad
+to have more."
+
+The average man thinks that the Congo and concessions are practically
+synonymous terms. In the Leopold day this was true but there is a new
+deal now. Let Monsieur Franck explain it:
+
+"There was a time when huge concessions were freely given in the Congo.
+They were then necessary because the Colony was new, the country
+unknown, and the financial risk large. Now that the economic
+possibilities of the region are realized it is not desirable to grant
+any more large concessions. It is proved that these concessions are
+really a handicap rather than a help to a young land. The wise procedure
+is to have a definite agricultural or industrial aim in mind, and then
+pick the locality for exploitation, whether it is gold, cotton, copper
+or palm fruit."
+
+"What is the future of the Congo?" I asked.
+
+"The Congo is now entering upon a big era of development," was the
+answer. "If the Great War had not intervened it would have been well
+under way. Despite the invasion of Belgium, the practical paralysis of
+our home industry, and the fact that many of our Congo officials and
+their most highly trained natives were off fighting the Germans in East
+Africa, the Colony more than held its own during those terrible years.
+In building the new Congo we are going to profit by the example of other
+countries and capitalize their knowledge and experience of tropical
+hygiene. We propose to combat sleeping sickness, for example, with an
+agency similar to your Rockefeller Institute of Research in New York.
+
+"The Congo is bound to become one of the great centers of the world
+supply. The Katanga is not only a huge copper area but it has immense
+stores of coal, tin, zinc and other valuable commodities. Our diamond
+fields have scarcely been scraped, while the agricultural possibilities
+of hundreds of thousands of square miles are unlimited.
+
+"The great need of the Congo is transport. We are increasing our river
+fleets and we propose to introduce on them a type of barge similar to
+that used on the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers.
+
+"An imposing program of railway expansion is blocked out. For one thing
+we expect to run a railway from the Katanga copper belt straight across
+country to Kinshassa on the Lower Congo. It is already surveyed. This
+will tap a thickly populated region and enable the diamond mines of the
+Kasai to get the labour they need so sorely. The Robert Williams railway
+through Angola will be another addition to our transportation
+facilities. One of the richest regions of the Congo is the north-eastern
+section. The gold mines at Kilo are now only accessible by river. We
+plan to join them up with the railway to be built from Stanleyville to
+the Soudan border. This will link the Congo River and the Nile. With our
+railroads as with our industrial enterprises, we stick to private
+ownership and operation with the State as a partner.
+
+"The new provinces of Ruanda and Urundi will contribute much to our
+future prosperity. They add millions of acres to our territory and
+3,000,000 healthy and prosperous natives to our population. These new
+possessions have two distinct advantages. One is that they provide an
+invigorating health resort which will be to the Central Congo what the
+Katanga is to the Southern. The other is that, being an immense cattle
+country--there is a head of live stock for every native--we will be able
+to secure fresh meat and dairy products, which are sorely needed.
+
+"The Congo is not only the economic hope of Belgium but it is teaching
+the Belgian capitalist to think in broad terms. Henceforth the business
+man of all countries must regard the universe as his field. As a
+practical commercial proposition it pays, both with nations as with
+individuals. We have found that the possession of the Congo, huge as it
+is, and difficult for a country like ours to develop, is a stimulating
+thing. It is quickening our enterprise and widening our world view."
+
+It would be difficult to find a more practical or comprehensive colonial
+program. It eliminates that bane of over-seas administration, red tape,
+and it puts the task of empire-building squarely up to the business man
+who is the best qualified for the work. I am quite certain that the
+advent of Monsieur Franck into office, and particularly his trip to the
+Congo, mean the beginning of an epoch of real and permanent exploitation
+in the Congo.
+
+[Illustration: THE MASSIVE BANGALAS]
+
+[Illustration: CONGO WOMEN IN STATE DRESS]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V--ON THE CONGO RIVER
+
+
+I
+
+Two days more of travelling on the Lower Lualaba brought us to
+Ponthierville, a jewel of a post with a setting of almost bewildering
+tropical beauty. Here we spent the night on the boat and early the
+following morning boarded a special train for Stanleyville, which is
+only six hours distant by rail. Midway we crossed the Equator.
+
+Thirty miles south of Stanleyville is the State Experimental Coffee Farm
+of three hundred acres, which produces fifteen different species of the
+bean. This institution is one evidence of a comprehensive agricultural
+development inaugurated by the Belgian Government. The State has about
+10,000 acres of test plantations, mostly Para rubber, cotton, and cacao,
+in various parts of the Colony.
+
+One commendable object of this work is to instill the idea of
+crop-growing among the natives. Under ordinary circumstances the man of
+colour in the tropics will only raise enough maize, manioc, or tobacco
+for his own needs. The Belgian idea is to encourage co-operative farming
+in the villages. In the region immediately adjacent to Stanleyville the
+natives have begun to plant cotton over a considerable area. At Kongolo
+I saw hundreds of acres of this fleecy plant under the sole supervision
+of the indigenes.
+
+Stanleyville marked one of the real mileposts of my journey. Here came
+Stanley on his first historic expedition across Central Africa and
+discovered the falls nearby that bear his name; here he set up the
+Station that marked the Farthest East of the expedition which founded
+the Congo Free State. Directly south-east of the town are seven distinct
+cataracts which extend over fifty miles of seething whirlpools.
+
+Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo and like Paris, is
+built on two sides of the river. On the right bank is the place of the
+Vice-Governor General, scores of well stocked stores, and many desirable
+residences. The streets are long avenues of palm trees. The left bank is
+almost entirely given over to the railway terminals, yards, and repair
+shops. My original plan was to live with the Vice-Governor General,
+Monsieur de Meulemeester, but his establishment was so taxed by the
+demands of the Ministerial party that I lodged with Monsieur Theews,
+Chief Engineer of the Chemin de Fer des Grands Lacs, where I was most
+comfortable in a large frame bungalow that commanded a superb view of
+the river and the town.
+
+At Stanleyville the Minister of the Colonies had a great reception. Five
+hundred native troops looking very smart were drawn up in the plaza. On
+the platform of the station stood the Vice-Governor General and staff in
+spotless white uniforms, their breasts ablaze with decorations. On all
+sides were thousands of natives in gay attire who cheered and chanted
+while the band played the Belgian national anthem. Over it all waved the
+flag of Belgium. It was a stirring spectacle not without its touch of
+the barbaric, and a small-scale replica of what you might have seen at
+Delhi or Cairo on a fete day.
+
+I was only mildly interested in all this tumult and shouting. What
+concerned me most was the swift, brown river that flowed almost at our
+feet. At last I had reached the masterful Congo, which, with the sole
+exception of the Amazon, is the mightiest stream in the world. As I
+looked at it I thought of Stanley and his battles on its shores, and the
+hardship and tragedy that these waters had witnessed.
+
+Stanleyville is not only the heart of Equatorial Africa but it is also
+an important administrative point. Hundreds of State officials report to
+the Vice-Governor General there, and on national holidays and occasions
+like the visit of the Colonial Minister, it can muster a gay assemblage.
+Monsieur Franck's presence inspired a succession of festivities
+including a garden party which was attended by the entire white
+population numbering about seventy-five. There was also a formal dinner
+where I wore evening clothes for the first and only time between
+Elizabethville and the steamer that took me to Europe three months
+later.
+
+At the garden party Monsieur Franck made a graceful speech in which he
+said that the real missionaries of African civilization were the wives
+who accompanied their husbands to their lonely posts in the field. What
+he said made a distinct impression upon me for it was not only the truth
+but it emphasized a detail that stands out in the memory of everyone who
+visits this part of the world. I know of no finer heroines than these
+women comrades of colonial officials who brave disease and discomfort to
+share the lives of their mates. For one thing, they give the native a
+new respect for his masters. All white women in the Congo are called
+"mamma" by the natives.
+
+The use of "mamma" by the African natives always strikes the newcomer as
+strange. It is a curious fact that practically the first word uttered by
+the black infant is "mamma," and in thousands of cases the final
+utterance of both adult male and female is the same word. In northern
+Rhodesia and many parts of the Congo the native mother frequently refers
+to her child as a "piccannin" which is almost the same word employed by
+coloured people in the American South.
+
+Stanleyville's social prestige is only equalled by her economic
+importance. It is one of the great ivory markets of the world. During
+the last two years this activity has undergone fluctuations that almost
+put Wall Street to the blush.
+
+During the war there was very little trafficking in ivory because it was
+a luxury. With peace came a big demand and the price soared to more than
+200 francs a kilo. The ordinary price is about forty. One trader at
+Stanleyville cleaned up a profit of 3,000,000 francs in three months.
+Then came the inevitable reaction and with it a unique situation. In
+their mad desire to corral ivory the traders ran up the normal price
+that the native hunters received. The moment the boom burst the white
+buyers sought to regulate their purchases accordingly. The native,
+however, knows nothing about the law of demand and supply and he holds
+out for the boom price. The outcome is that hundreds of tons of ivory
+are piled up in the villages and no power on earth can convince the
+savage that there is such a thing as the ebb and flow of price. Such is
+commercial life in the jungle.
+
+Northeast of Stanleyville lie the most important gold mines in the
+Colony. The precious metal was discovered accidentally some years ago in
+the gravel of small rivers west of Lake Albert, and near the small towns
+of Kilo and Moto. Four mines are now worked in this vicinity, two by the
+Government and two by a private company. At the outbreak of the war this
+area was on the verge of considerable development which has just been
+resumed. At the time of my visit all these mines were placers and the
+operation was rather primitive. With modern machinery and enlarged white
+staffs will come a pretentious exploitation. The Government mines alone
+yield more than $2,000,000 worth of gold every year. Shortly before my
+arrival in the Congo what was heralded as the largest gold nugget ever
+discovered was found in the Kilo State Mine. It weighed twelve pounds.
+
+Stanleyville has a significance for me less romantic but infinitely more
+practical than the first contact with the Congo River. After long weeks
+of suffering from inefficient service I sacked Gerome and annexed a boy
+named Nelson. The way of it was this: In the Katanga I engaged a young
+Belgian who was on his way home, to act as secretary. He knew the native
+languages and could always convince the most stubborn black to part with
+an egg. Nelson was his servant. He was born on the Rhodesian border and
+spoke English. I could therefore upbraid him to my heart's content,
+which was not the case with Gerome. Besides, he was not handicapped with
+a wife. In Africa the servants adopt the names of their masters. Nelson
+had worked for an Englishman at Elizabethville and acquired his
+cognomen. I have not the slightest doubt that he now masquerades under
+mine. Be that as it may, Nelson was a model servant and he remained with
+me until that September day when I boarded the Belgium-bound boat at
+Matadi.
+
+Nelson reminded me more of the Georgia Negro than any other one that I
+saw in the Congo. He was almost coal black, he smiled continuously, and
+his teeth were wonderful to look at. He had an unusual capacity for
+work and also for food. I think he was the champion consumer of
+_chikwanga_ in the Congo. The _chikwanga_ is a glutinous dough made from
+the pounded root of the manioc plant and is the principal food of the
+native. It is rolled and cut up in pieces and then wrapped in green
+leaves. The favorite way of preparing it for consumption is to heat it
+in palm oil, although it is often eaten raw. Nelson bought these
+_chikwangas_ by the dozen. He was never without one. He even ate as he
+washed my clothes.
+
+The Congo native is in a continuous state of receptivity when it comes
+to food. Nowhere in the world have I seen people who ate so much. I have
+offered the leavings of a meal to a savage just after he had apparently
+gorged himself and he "wolfed" it as if he were famished. The invariable
+custom in the Congo is to have one huge meal a day. On this occasion
+every member of the family consumes all the edibles in sight. Then the
+crowd lays off until the following day. All food offered in the meantime
+by way of gratuity or otherwise is devoured on the spot.
+
+In connection with the _chikwanga_ is an interesting fact. The Congo
+natives all die young--I only saw a dozen old men--because they are
+insufficiently nourished. The _chikwanga_ is filling but not fattening.
+This is why sleeping sickness takes such dreadful toll. From an
+estimated population of 30,000,000 in Stanley's day the indigenes have
+dwindled to less than one-third this number. Meat is a luxury. Although
+the natives have chickens in abundance they seldom eat one for the
+reason that it is more profitable to sell them to the white man.
+
+It is not surprising, therefore, that the Congo native suffers from
+ailments. Unlike the average small boy of civilization, he delights
+in taking medicine. I suppose that he regards it as just another form of
+food. You hear many amusing stories in connection with medicinal
+articles. When you give a savage a dozen effective pills, for example,
+and tell him to take one every night, he usually swallows them all at
+one time and then he wonders why the results are disastrous. A sorcerer
+in the Upper Congo region once obtained what was widely acclaimed as
+miraculous results from a red substance that he got out of a tin. It
+developed that he had stolen a can of potted beef and was using it as
+"medicine."
+
+[Illustration: CENTRAL AFRICAN PYGMIES]
+
+Stanleyville was called the center of the old Arab slave trade. While
+the odious traffic has long ceased to exist, you occasionally meet an
+old native who bears the scars of battle with the marauders and who can
+tell harrowing tales of the cruelties they inflicted.
+
+The slave raiders began their operations in the Congo in 1877, the same
+year in which Stanley made his historic march across Africa from
+Zanzibar to the north of the Congo. It was the great explorer who
+unconsciously blazed the way for the man-hunters. They followed him down
+the Lualaba River as far as Stanley Falls and discovered what was to
+them a real human treasure-trove. For twenty years they blighted the
+country, carrying off tens of thousands of men, women and children and
+slaughtering thousands in addition. This region was a cannibal
+stronghold and one bait that lured local allies was the promise of the
+bodies of all natives slain, for consumption. Belgian pioneers in the
+Congo who co-operated with the late Baron Dhanis who finally put down
+the slave trade, have told me that it was no infrequent sight to behold
+native women going off to their villages with baskets of human flesh.
+They were part of the spoils of this hideous warfare.
+
+Tippo Tib was lord of this slave-trading domain. This astounding rascal
+had a distinct personality. He was a master trader and drove the hardest
+bargain in all Africa. Livingstone, Cameron, Stanley, and Wissmann all
+did business with him, for he had a monopoly on porters and no one could
+proceed without his help. He invariably waited until the white man
+reached the limit of his resources and then exacted the highest price,
+in true Shylockian fashion.
+
+According to Herbert Ward, the well-known African artist and explorer,
+who accompanied Stanley on the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, Tippo Tib
+was something of a philosopher. On one occasion Ward spent the evening
+with the old Arab. He occupied a wretched house. Rain dripped in through
+the roof, rats scuttled across the floor, and wind shook the walls. When
+the Englishman expressed his astonishment that so rich and powerful a
+chief should dwell in such a mean abode Tippo Tib said:
+
+"It is better that I should live in a house like this because it makes
+me remember that I am only an ordinary man like others. If I lived in a
+fine house with comforts I should perhaps end by thinking too much of
+myself."
+
+Ward also relates another typical story about this blood-thirsty bandit.
+A missionary once called him to account for the frightful barbarities he
+had perpetrated, whereupon he received the following reply:
+
+"Ah, yes! You see I was then a young man. Now my hair is turning gray. I
+am an old man and shall have more consideration."
+
+Until his death in 1907 at Zanzibar, Tippo Tib and reformation were
+absolute strangers. He embodied that combination of cruelty and
+religious fanaticism so often found in the Arab. He served his God and
+the devil with the same relentless devotion. He incarnated a type that
+happily has vanished from the map of Africa.
+
+The region around Stanleyville is rich with historic interest and
+association. The great name inseparably and immortally linked with it is
+that of Stanley. Although he found Livingstone, relieved Emin Pasha,
+first traversed the Congo River, and sowed the seeds of civilization
+throughout the heart of the continent, his greatest single achievement,
+perhaps, was the founding of the Congo Free State. No other enterprise
+took such toll of his essential qualities and especially his genius for
+organization.
+
+Stanley is most widely known as an explorer, yet he was, at the same
+time, one of the master civilizers. He felt that his Congo adventure
+would be incomplete if he did not make the State a vast productive
+region and the home of the white man. He longed to see it a British
+possession and it was only after he offered it twice to England and was
+twice rebuffed, that he accepted the invitation of King Leopold II to
+organize the stations under the auspices of the International African
+Association, which was the first step toward Belgian sovereignty.
+
+I have talked with many British and Belgian associates of Stanley.
+Without exception they all acclaim his sterling virtues both in the
+physical and spiritual sense. All agree that he was a hard man. The best
+explanation of this so-called hardness is given by Herbert Ward, who
+once spoke to him about it. Stanley's reply was, "You've got to be hard.
+If you're not hard you're weak. There are only two sides to it."
+
+Stanley always declared that his whole idea of life and work were
+embodied in the following maxim: "The three M's are all we need. They
+are Morals, Mind and Muscles. These must be cultivated if we wish to be
+immortal." To an astonishing degree he worked and lived up to these
+principles.
+
+No explorer, not even Peary in the Arctic wilds, was ever prey to a
+larger isolation than this man. In the midst of the multitude he was
+alone. He shunned intimacy and one of his mournful reflections was, "I
+have had no friend on any expedition, no one who could possibly be my
+companion on an equal footing, except while with Livingstone."
+
+I cannot resist the impulse to make comparison between those two
+outstanding Englishmen, Rhodes and Stanley, whose lives are intimately
+woven into the fabric of African romance. They had much in common and
+yet they were widely different in purpose and temperament. Each was an
+autocrat and brooked no interference. Each had the same kindling ideal
+of British imperialism. Each suffered abuse at the hands of his
+countrymen and lived to witness a triumphant vindication.
+
+Stanley had a rare talent for details--he went on the theory that if you
+wanted a thing done properly you must do it yourself--but Rhodes only
+saw things in a big way and left the interpretation to subordinates.
+Stanley was devoutly religious while Rhodes paid scant attention to the
+spiritual side. Each was a dreamer in his own way and merely regarded
+money as a means to an end. Rhodes, however, was far more disdainful of
+wealth as such, than Stanley, who received large sums for his books and
+lectures. It is only fair to him to say that he never took pecuniary
+advantage of the immense opportunities that his explorations in the
+Congo afforded.
+
+Still another intrepid Englishman narrowly missed having a big role in
+the drama of the Congo. General Gordon agreed to assume the Governorship
+of the Lower Congo under Stanley, who was to be the Chief Administrator
+of the Upper Congo. They were to unite in one grand effort to crush the
+slave trade. Fate intervened. Gordon meanwhile was asked by the British
+Government to go to Egypt, then in the throes of the Mahdist uprising.
+He went to his martyrdom at Khartoum, and Stanley continued his work
+alone in Central Africa.
+
+While Stanley established its most enduring traditions, other heroic
+soldiers and explorers, contributed to the roll of fame of the Upper
+Congo region. Conspicuous among them was Captain Deane, an Englishman
+who fought the Arab slave traders at Stanley Falls and who figured in a
+succession of episodes that read like the most romantic fiction.
+
+With less than a hundred native troops recruited from the West Coast of
+Africa, he defended the State Station founded by Stanley at the Falls
+against thousands of Arab raiders. Most of the caps in his rifle
+cartridges were rendered useless by dampness and the Captain and his
+second in command, Lieutenant Dubois, a Belgian officer, fought shoulder
+to shoulder with his men in the hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.
+Subsequently practically all the natives deserted and Deane was left
+with Dubois and four loyal blacks. Under cover of darkness they escaped
+from the island on which the Station was located. On this journey Dubois
+was drowned.
+
+For thirty days Deane and his four faithful troopers wandered through
+the forests, hiding during the day from their ferocious pursuers and
+sleeping in trees at night. On the thirtieth day he was captured by the
+savages. Unarmed, he sank to the ground overcome with weariness. A big
+native stood over him with his spear poised for the fatal thrust. A
+moment later the Englishman was surprised to see his enemy lower the
+weapon and grasp him by the hand. He had succored this savage two years
+before and had not been forgotten. Deane and his companions were
+convoyed under an escort to Herbert Ward's camp and he was nursed back
+to health.
+
+Deane's death illustrates the irony that entered into the passing of so
+many African adventurers. Twelve months after he was snatched from the
+jaws of death on the banks of the Congo in the manner just described, he
+was killed while hunting elephants. A wounded beast impaled him on a
+tusk and then mauled him almost beyond recognition.
+
+
+II
+
+Since Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo there is
+ordinarily no lack of boats. I was fortunate to be able to embark on the
+"Comte de Flandre," the Mauretania of those inland seas and the most
+imposing vessel on the river for she displaced five hundred tons. She
+flew the flag of the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm oil concern
+founded by Lord Leverhulme and the most important all-British commercial
+interest in the Congo. She was one of a fleet of ten boats that operate
+on the Congo, the Kasai, the Kwilu and other rivers. I not only had a
+comfortable cabin but the rarest of luxuries in Central Africa, a
+regulation bathtub, was available. The "Comte de Flandre" had cabin
+accommodations for fourteen whites. The Captain was an Englishman and
+the Chief Engineer a Scotchman.
+
+On this, as on most of the other Congo boats, the food is provided by
+the Captain, to whom the passengers pay a stipulated sum for meals. On
+the "Comte de Flandre," however, the food privilege was owned jointly by
+the Captain and the Chief Engineer. The latter did all the buying and it
+was almost excruciatingly funny to watch him driving real Scotch
+bargains with the natives who came aboard at the various stops to sell
+chickens, goats, and fruit. The engineer could scarcely speak a word of
+any of the native languages, but he invariably got over the fact that
+the price demanded was too high.
+
+The passenger list of the "Comte de Flandre" included Englishmen,
+Belgians, Italians, and Portuguese. I was the only American. The
+steerage, firemen, and wood-boys were all blacks. With this
+international congress over which beamed the broad smile of Nelson, I
+started on the thousand-mile trip down the Congo River.
+
+It is difficult to convey the impression that the Congo River gives.
+Serene and majestic, it is often well-nigh overwhelming in its
+immensity. Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa there are four thousand
+islands, some of them thirty miles in length. As the boat picks its way
+through them you feel as if you were travelling through an endless
+tropical park of which the river provides the paths. It has been well
+called a "Venice of Vegetation." The shores are brilliant with a
+variegated growth whose exotic smell is wafted out over the waters. You
+see priceless orchids entwined with the mangroves in endless profusion.
+Behind this verdure stretches the dense equatorial forest in which
+Stanley battled years ago in an almost impenetrable gloom. Aigrettes and
+birds of paradise fly on all sides and every hour reveals a hideous
+crocodile sunning himself on a sandspit.
+
+Night on the Congo enhances the loneliness that you feel on all the
+Central African rivers. Although the settlements are more numerous and
+larger than those on the Lualaba and the Kasai, there is the same
+feeling of isolation the moment darkness falls. The jungle seems to be
+an all-embracing monster who mocks you with his silence. Joseph Conrad
+interpreted this atmosphere when he referred to it as having "a
+stillness of life that did not resemble peace,--the silence of an
+implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." This is the
+Congo River.
+
+The more I saw of the Congo River--it is nearly twice as large as the
+Mississippi--the more I realized that it is in reality a parent of
+waters. It has half a dozen tributaries that range in length from 500 to
+1,000 miles each. The most important are the Lualaba and the Kasai.
+Others include the Itimbiri, the Aruwimi and the Mubangi. Scores of
+smaller streams, many of them navigable for launches, empty into the
+main river. This is why there is such a deep and swift current in the
+lower region where the Congo enters the sea.
+
+[Illustration: WOMEN MAKING POTTERY]
+
+[Illustration: THE CONGO PICKANINNY]
+
+The astonishing thing about the Congo River is its inconsistency.
+Although six miles wide in many parts it is frequently not more than six
+feet deep. This makes navigation dangerous and difficult. As on the
+Lualaba and every other river in the Colony, soundings must be taken
+continually. This extraordinary discrepancy between width and depth
+reminds me of the designation of the Platte River in Nebraska by a
+Kansas statesman which was, "A river three-quarters of a mile wide and
+three-quarters of an inch deep." Thus the Congo journey takes on a
+constant element of hazard because you do not know what moment you will
+run aground on a sand-bank, be impaled on a snag, or strike a rock.
+
+Although the "Comte de Flandre" was rated as the fastest craft on the
+Congo our progress was unusually slow because of the scarcity of wood
+for fuel. This seems incredible when you consider that the whole Congo
+Basin is one vast forest. Millions of trees stand ready to be sacrificed
+to the needs of man, yet there are no hands to cut them. In the Congo,
+as throughout this distracted world, the will-to-work is a lost art, no
+less manifest among the savages than among their civilized brothers. The
+ordinary native will only labour long enough to provide himself with
+sufficient money to buy a month's supply of food. Then he quits and
+joins the leisure class. Hence wood-hunting on the Congo vies with the
+trip itself as a real adventure. The competition between river captains
+for fuel is so keen that a skipper will sometimes start his boat at
+three o'clock in the morning and risk an accident in the dark in order
+to beat a rival to a wood supply.
+
+All up and down the river are wood-posts. Most of them are owned by the
+steamship companies. It was our misfortune to find most of them
+practically stripped of their supplies. A journey which ordinarily takes
+twelve days consumed twenty. But there were many compensations and I had
+no quarrel with the circumstance:
+
+I had the good fortune to witness that rarest of sights that falls to
+the lot of the casual traveller--a serious fight between natives. We
+stopped at a native wood-post--(some of them are operated by the
+occasionally industrious blacks)--for fuel. The whole village turned out
+to help load the logs. In the midst of the process a crowd of natives
+made their appearance, armed with spears and shields. They began to
+taunt the men and women who were loading our boat. I afterwards learned
+that they owned a wood-post nearby and were disgruntled because we had
+not patronized them. They blamed their neighbours for it. Almost before
+we realized it a pitched battle was in progress in which spears were
+thrown and men and women were laid out in a generally bloody fracas. One
+man got an assegai through his throat and it probably inflicted a fatal
+wound.
+
+In the midst of the melee one of my fellow passengers, a Catholic priest
+named Father Brandsma, courageously dashed in between the flying spears
+and logs of wood and separated the combatants. This incident shows the
+hostility that still exists between the various tribes in the Congo. It
+constitutes one excellent reason why there can never be any concerted
+uprising against the whites. There is no single, strong, cohesive native
+dynasty.
+
+Father Brandsma was one of the finest men I met in the Congo. He was a
+member of the society of priests which has its headquarters at Mill Hill
+in England. He came aboard the boat late one night when we were tied up
+at Bumba, having ridden a hundred miles on his bicycle along the native
+trails. We met the following morning in the dining saloon. I sat at a
+table writing letters and he took a seat nearby and started to make some
+notes in a book. When we finished I addressed him in French. He answered
+in flawless English. He then told me that he had spent fifteen years in
+Uganda, where he was at the head of the Catholic Missions.
+
+The Father was in his fifth year of service in the Congo and his
+analysis of the native situation was accurate and convincing. Among
+other things he said, "The great task of the Colonial Government is to
+provide labour for the people. In many localities only one native out of
+a hundred works. This idleness must be stopped and the only way to stop
+it is to initiate highway and other improvements, so as to recruit a
+large part of the native population."
+
+Father Brandsma is devoting some of his energy to a change in copal
+gathering. This substance, which is found at the roots of trees in
+swampy and therefore unhealthy country, is employed in the manufacture
+of varnish. To harvest it the natives stand all day in water up to their
+hips and they catch the inevitable colds from which pneumonia develops.
+Copal gathering is a considerable source of income for many tribes and
+usually the entire community treks to the marshes. In this way the
+lives of the women and children are also menaced. The Father believes
+that only the men should go forth at certain periods for this work and
+leave their families behind.
+
+Father Brandsma was the central actor in a picturesque scene. One Sunday
+morning I heard a weird chanting and I arose to discover the cause. I
+found that the priest was celebrating mass for the natives on the main
+deck of the boat. Dawn had just broken, and on the improvised altar
+several candles gleamed in the half light. In his vestments the priest
+was a striking figure. All about him knelt the score of naked savages
+who made up the congregation. They crossed themselves constantly and
+made the usual responses. I must confess that the ceremony was strangely
+moving and impressive.
+
+As soon as I reached the Congo River I saw that the natives were bigger
+and stronger than those of the Katanga and other sections that I had
+visited. The most important of the river tribes are the Bangalas, who
+are magnificent specimens of manhood. In Stanley's day they were masters
+of a considerable portion of the Upper Congo River region and contested
+his way skilfully and bitterly. They are more peacefully inclined today
+and hundreds of them are employed as wood-boys and firemen on the river
+boats.
+
+The Bangalas practice cicatrization to an elaborate extent. This process
+consists of opening a portion of the flesh with a knife, injecting an
+irritating juice into the wound, and allowing the place to swell. The
+effect is to raise a lump or weal. Some of these excrescences are tiny
+bumps and others develop into large welts that disfigure the anatomy.
+Extraordinary designs are literally carved on the faces and bodies of
+the men and women. Although it is an intensely painful operation,--some
+of the wounds must be opened many times--the native submits to it with
+pleasure because the more ornate the design the more resplendent the
+wearer feels. The women are usually more liberally marked than the men.
+
+Cicatrization is popular in various parts of Central Africa but nowhere
+to the degree that it prevails on the Congo River and among the
+Bangalas, where it is a tribal mark. I observed women whose entire
+bodies from the ankles up to the head were one mass of cicatrized
+designs. One of the favorite areas is the stomach. This is just another
+argument against clothes. Cicatrization bears the same relation to the
+African native that tattooing does to the whites of some sections. Human
+vanity works in mysterious ways to express itself.
+
+In this connection it is perhaps worth while to point out one of the
+reasons why the Congo atrocity exhorters found such ready exhibits for
+their arguments. The Central African native delights in disfigurement
+not only as a sign of "beauty," but as a means of retaliation for real
+or fancied wrongs among his own. In the old days dozens of slaves, and
+sometimes wives, were sacrificed upon the death of an important chief.
+Their spirits were supposed to provide a bodyguard to escort the
+departed potentate safely into the land of the hereafter. One of the
+former prerogatives of a husband was the sanction to chop off the hand
+or foot of a wife if she offended or disobeyed him. Hence Central Africa
+abounded in mutilated men, women and children. While some of these
+barbarities may have been due to excessive zeal or temper in State or
+corporation officials there is no doubt that many instances were the
+result of native practices.
+
+The reference to cicatrization brings to mind another distinctive
+Central African observance. I refer to the ceremony of blood
+brotherhood. When two men, who have been enemies, desire to make the
+peace and swear eternal amity, they make a small incision in one of
+their forearms sufficiently deep to cause the flow of blood. Each then
+licks the blood from the other's arm and henceforth they are related as
+brothers. This performance was not only common among the blacks but was
+also practiced by the whites and the blacks the moment civilization
+entered the wild domains. Stanley's arms were one mass of scars as the
+result of swearing constant blood brotherhood. It became such a nuisance
+and at the same time developed into such a serious menace to his health,
+that the rite had to be amended. Instead of licking the blood the
+comrades now merely rub the incisions together on the few occasions
+nowadays when fealty is sworn. I am glad to say that I escaped the
+ordeal.
+
+Much to my regret I saw only a few of the much-described pygmies who
+dwelt mainly in the regions northeast of Stanleyville, where Stanley
+first met them. They are all under three feet in height, are light brown
+in colour, and wear no garments when on their native heath. They are the
+shyest of all the tribes I encountered. These diminutive creatures
+seldom enter the service of the white man and prefer the wild life of
+the jungle. I was informed in the Congo that the real pygmy is fast
+disappearing from the map. Intermarriage with other tribes, and
+settlement into more or less permanent villages, have increased the
+height of the present generation and helped to remove one of the last
+human links with Stanley's great day.
+
+The Congo River native is perhaps the shrewdest in all Central Africa.
+He is a born trader, and he can convert the conventional shoe-string
+into something worth while. One reason why the Bangalas take positions
+as firemen and woodboys on the river boats is that it enables them to go
+into business. The price of food at the small settlements up river is
+much less than at Kinshassa, where navigation from Stanleyville
+southward ends. Hence the blacks acquire considerable stores of palm oil
+and dried fish at the various stops made by the steamers and dispose of
+it with large profit when they reach the end of the journey. I have in
+mind the experience of a capita on the "Comte de Flandre." When we left
+Stanleyville his cash capital was thirty-five francs. With this he
+purchased a sufficient quantity of food, which included dozens of pieces
+of _chikwanga_, to realize two hundred and twenty francs at Kinshassa.
+
+These river natives are genuine profiteers. They invariably make it a
+rule to charge the white man three or four times the price they exact
+from their own kind. No white man ever thinks of buying anything
+himself. He always sends one of his servants. As soon as the vendor
+knows that the servant is in the white employ he shoves up the price. I
+discovered this state of affairs as soon as I started down the Lualaba.
+In my innocence I paid two francs for a bunch of bananas. The moment I
+had closed the deal I observed larger and better bunches being purchased
+by natives for fifty centimes.
+
+This business of profiteering by the natives is no new phase of life in
+the Congo. Stanley discovered it to his cost. Sir Harry Johnston, the
+distinguished explorer and administrator, who added to his achievements
+during these past years by displaying skill and brilliancy as a
+novelist, tells a characteristic story that throws light on the
+subject. It deals with one of the experiences of George Grenfell, the
+eminent British missionary who gave thirty years of his unselfish life
+to work in the Congo. On one of his trips he noticed the corpse of a
+woman hanging from the branches of a tree over the water of the great
+river. At first he thought that she had been executed as a punishment
+for adultery, one of the most serious crimes in the native calendar. On
+investigation he found that she had been guilty of a much more serious
+offense. A law had been imposed that all goods, especially food, must be
+sold to the white man at a far higher price than the local market value.
+This unhappy woman had only doubled the quotation for eggs, had been
+convicted of breaking the code, and had suffered death in consequence.
+
+Since I have referred to adultery, let me point out a situation that
+does not reflect particular credit on so-called civilization. Before the
+white man came to Africa chastity was held in deepest reverence. The
+usual punishment for infidelity was death. Some of the early white men
+were more or less promiscuous and set a bad moral example with regard to
+the women. The native believed that in this respect "the white man can
+do no wrong" and the inevitable laxity resulted. When a woman deserts
+her husband now all she gets is a sound beating. If a man elopes with
+the wife of a friend, he is haled before a magistrate and fined.
+
+[Illustration: THE HEART OF THE EQUATORIAL FOREST]
+
+
+III
+
+On the Congo I got my first glimpse of the native fashion in mourning.
+It is a survival of the biblical "sackcloth and ashes." As soon as a
+death occurs all the members of the family smear their faces and bodies
+with ashes or dirt. Even the babies show these rude symbols of woe. It
+gives the person thus adorned a weird and ghastly appearance. When ashes
+and dust are not available for this purpose, a substitute is found in
+filthy mud. The mourner is not permitted to wash throughout the entire
+period of grief, which ranges from thirty to ninety days.
+
+Like the Southern Negro in America these African natives are not only
+born actors but have a keen sense of humour. They are quick to imitate
+the white man. If a Georgia darkey, for example, wants to abuse a member
+of his own race he delights to call him "a fool nigger." It is the last
+word in reproach. In the Congo when a native desires to express contempt
+for his fellow, he refers to him as a _basingi_, which means bush-man.
+It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
+
+Up the Kasai I heard a story that admirably illustrates the native
+humour. A Belgian official much inclined to corpulency came out to take
+charge of a post. After the usual fashion, he received a native name the
+moment he arrived. It is not surprising that he became known as _Mafutta
+Mingi_. As soon as he learned what it meant he became indignant. Like
+most fat men he could not persuade himself that he was fat. He demanded
+that he be given another title, whereupon the local chief solemnly
+dubbed him _Kiboko_. The official was immediately appeased. He noticed
+that a broad smile invariably illumined the countenance of the person
+who addressed him in this way. On investigation he discovered that the
+word meant hippopotamus.
+
+The Congo native delights in argument. Here you get another parallel
+with his American brother. A Bangala, for example, will talk for a week
+about five centimes. One day at Dima I heard a terrific shouting and
+exhorting down at the native market which is held twice a week. I was
+certain that someone was being murdered. When I arrived on the scene I
+saw a hundred men and women gesticulating wildly and in a great state of
+excitement. I learned that the wife of a wood-boy on a boat had either
+secreted or sold a scrap of soap, and her husband was not only berating
+her with his tongue but telling the whole community about it.
+
+The chief function of most Belgian officials in the Congo is to preside
+at what is technically known as a "palaver." This word means conference
+but it actually develops into a free-for-all riotous protestation by the
+natives involved. They all want to talk at the same time and it is like
+an Irish debating society. Years ago each village had a "palaver
+ground," where the chief sat in solemn judgment on the disputes of his
+henchmen. Now the "palavers" are held before Government officers. Most
+of the "palavers" that I heard related to elopements. No matter how
+grievous was the offense of the male he invariably shifted the entire
+responsibility to the woman. He was merely emulating the ways of
+civilization.
+
+Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa we not only stopped every night
+according to custom, but halted at not less than a dozen settlements to
+take on or deliver cargo. These stations resemble each other in that
+they are mainly a cluster of stores owned or operated by agents of
+various trading companies. Practically every post in the Congo has, in
+addition, a shop owned by a Portuguese. You find these traders
+everywhere. They have something of the spirit of adventure and the
+hardihood of their doughty ancestors who planted the flag of Portugal on
+the high seas back in that era when the little kingdom was a world
+power.
+
+Some of them have been in the Congo for fifteen and twenty years without
+ever stirring outside its confines. On the steamer that took me to
+Europe from the Congo was a Portuguese who had lived in the bush for
+twenty-two years. When he got on the big steamer he was frightened at
+the noise and practically remained in his cabin throughout the entire
+voyage. As we neared France he told me that if he had realized
+beforehand the terror and tumult of the civilization that he had
+forgotten, he never would have departed from his jungle home. He was as
+shy as a wild animal.
+
+One settlement, Basoko, has a tragic meaning for the Anglo-Saxon. Here
+died and lies buried, the gallant Grenfell. I doubt if exploration
+anywhere revealed a nobler character than this Baptist minister whose
+career has been so adequately presented by Sir Harry Johnston, and who
+ranks with Stanley and Livingstone as one of the foremost of African
+explorers. In the Congo evangelization has been fraught with a truly
+noble fortitude. When you see the handicaps that have beset both
+Catholic and Protestant missionaries you are filled with a new
+appreciation of their calling.
+
+The most important stop of this trip was at Coquilhatville, named in
+honor of Captain Coquilhat, one of the most courageous of the early
+Belgian soldier-explorers. It was the original Equatorville (it is at
+the point where the Equator cuts the Congo), founded by Stanley when he
+established the series of stations under the auspices of the
+International African Association. Here dwells the Vice-Governor of the
+Equatorial Province. Near by is a botanical garden maintained by the
+Colonial Government and which contains specimens of all the flora of
+Central Africa.
+
+At Coquilhatville I saw the first horse since I left Rhodesia and it was
+a distinct event. Except in the Kasai region it is impossible to
+maintain live stock in the Congo. The tsetse fly is the devastating
+agency. Apparently the only beasts able to withstand this scourge are
+goats and dogs. The few white men who live in Coquilhatville have been
+able to maintain five horses which are used by the so-called Riding
+Club. These animals provide the only exercise at the post. They are
+owned and ridden by the handful of Englishmen there. A man must drive
+himself to indulge in any form of outdoor sport along the equator. The
+climate is more or less enervating and it takes real Anglo-Saxon energy
+to resist the lure of the _siesta_ or to remain in bed as long as
+possible.
+
+Bolobo is a reminder of Stanley. He had more trouble here than at any of
+the many stations he set up in the Congo Free State in the early
+eighties. The natives were hostile, the men he left in charge proved to
+be inefficient, and on two occasions the settlement was burned to the
+ground. Today it is the seat of one of the largest and most prosperous
+of all the English Baptist Congo missions and is presided over by a
+Congo veteran, Dr. Stonelake. One feature of the work here is a manual
+training school for natives, who manufacture the same kind of wicker
+chairs that the tourist buys at Madeira.
+
+The farther I travelled in the Congo the more deeply I became interested
+in the native habits and customs. Although cluttered with ignorance and
+superstition the barbaric mind is strangely productive of a rude
+philosophy which is expressed in a quaint folklore. Seasoned Congo
+travellers like Grenfell, Stanley, Ward, and Johnston have all recorded
+fascinating local legends. I heard many of these tales myself and I
+shall endeavour to relate the best.
+
+Some of the most characteristic stories deal with the origin of death.
+Here is a Bangala tradition gathered by Grenfell and which runs as
+follows:
+
+    The natives say that in the beginning men and women did not die.
+    That one day, _Nza Komba_ (God) came bringing two gifts, a large and
+    a small one. If they chose the smaller one they would continue to
+    live, but if the larger one, they would for a time enjoy much
+    greater wealth, but they would afterwards die. The men said they
+    must consider the matter, and went away to drink water, as the
+    Kongos say. While they were discussing the matter the women took the
+    larger gift, and _Nza Komba_ went back with the little one. He has
+    never been seen since, though they cried and cried for Him to come
+    back and take the big bundle and give them the little one, and with
+    it immortality.
+
+The Baluba version of the great mystery is set forth in this way:
+
+    God (_Kabezya-unpungu_) created the sun, moon, and stars, then the
+    world, and later the plants and animals. When all this was finished
+    He placed a man and two women in the world and taught them the name
+    and use of all things. He gave an axe and a knife to the man, and
+    taught him to cut wood, weave stuffs, melt iron, and to hunt and
+    fish. To the women he gave a pickaxe and a knife. He taught both of
+    them to till the ground, make pottery, weave baskets, make
+    oil,--that is to say, all that custom assigns to them to-day.
+
+    These first inhabitants of the earth lived happily for a long time
+    until one of the women began to grow old. God, foreseeing this, had
+    given her the gift of rejuvenating herself, and the faculty, if she
+    once succeeded, of preserving the gift for herself and for all
+    mankind. Unfortunately, she speedily lost the precious treasure and
+    introduced death into the world.
+
+    This is how the misfortune occurred: Seeing herself all withered,
+    the woman took the fan with which her companion had been winnowing
+    maize for the manufacture of beer and shut herself into her hut,
+    carefully closing the door. There she began to tear off her old
+    skin, throwing it on the fan. The skin came off easily, a new one
+    appearing in its place. The operation was nearing completion. There
+    remained the head and neck only when her companion came to the hut
+    to fetch her fan and before the old woman could speak, pushed open
+    the door. The almost rejuvenated woman fell dead instantly.
+
+    This is the reason we all die. The two survivors gave birth to a
+    number of sons and daughters, from whom all races have descended.
+    Since that time God does not trouble about His creatures. He is
+    satisfied with visiting them incognito now and again. Wherever He
+    passes the ground sinks. He injures no one. It is therefore
+    superfluous to honour him, so the Balubas offer no worship to Him.
+
+The animal story has a high place in the legends of these peoples. They
+represent a combination of Kipling's Jungle Book, Aesop's Fables, and
+Br'er Rabbit. Nor do they fail to point a moral. Naturally, the elephant
+is a conspicuous feature in most of them. The tale of "The Elephant and
+the Shrew" will illustrate. Here it is:
+
+[Illustration: NATIVES PILING WOOD]
+
+[Illustration: A WOOD POST ON THE CONGO]
+
+    One day the elephant met the shrew mouse on his road. "Out of the
+    way," cried the latter. "I am the bigger, and it is your place to
+    look out," replied the monster. "Curse you!" retorted the shrew
+    mouse furiously. "May the long grass cut your legs!" "And may you
+    meet your death when you walk in the road!" replied the other
+    crushing him under his huge foot. Both curses have been fulfilled.
+    From that day the elephant wounds himself when he goes through the
+    long grass, and the shrew-mouse meets her death when she crosses the
+    road.
+
+The story of the elephant and the chameleon is equally interesting. One
+day the chameleon challenged the elephant to a race. The latter accepted
+the challenge and a meeting was arranged for the following morning.
+During the night the chameleon placed all his brothers from point to
+point along the length of the track where the race was to be run. When
+day came the elephant started. The chameleon quickly slipped behind
+without the elephant noticing. "Are you not tired?" asked the monster of
+the first chameleon he met. "Not at all," he replied, executing the same
+manoeuvre as the former. This stratagem was renewed so many times that
+the elephant, tired out, gave up the contest and confessed himself
+beaten.
+
+In the wilds, as in civilization, the relation between husband and wife,
+and more especially the downfall of the autocrat of the home, is a
+favorite subject for jest. From the northeastern corner of the Congo
+comes this illuminating story:
+
+    A man had two wives, one gentle and prepossessing, the other such a
+    gossip that he was often made angry. Neither remonstrances nor
+    beating improved her, and finally he made up his mind to drive her
+    into a wood amongst the hyenas. There she built herself a little hut
+    into which a hyena came and boldly installed herself as mistress.
+    The wife tried to protest but the hyena, not content with eating and
+    drinking all that the wife was preparing, compelled her furthermore
+    to look after her young. One day the hyena had ordered the woman to
+    boil some water. While waiting the wife had the sudden idea of
+    seizing the young hyenas and throwing them into the boiling water.
+    She did this and then she ran trembling to take refuge in the home
+    of her husband whom she found calmly seated at the entrance of the
+    house, spear in hand. She threw herself at the feet of her spouse,
+    beseeching him for help and protection. When the hyena arrived
+    foaming with rage her husband stretched it dead on the ground with a
+    blow of his spear. The lesson was not lost on the wife. From that
+    day forth she became the joy and delight of her husband.
+
+The Congo can ever reproduce its own version of the fable of "The Goose
+that Laid the Golden Egg." It is somewhat primitive but serves the same
+purpose. As told to the naked piccaninnies by the flickering camp-fires
+it runs thus:
+
+    Four fools owned a chicken which laid blue glass beads instead of
+    eggs. A quarrel arose concerning the ownership of the fowl. The bird
+    was subsequently killed and divided into four equal portions. The
+    spring of their good fortune dried up.
+
+To understand the significance of the story it must be understood that
+for many years beads have been one of the forms of currency in Central
+Africa. Formerly they were as important a detail in the purchase of a
+wife as copper and calico. The first piece of attire, if it may be
+designated by this name, that adorns the native baby after its entrance
+into the world is an anklet of blue beads. Later a strand of beads is
+placed round its loins.
+
+When you have heard such stories as I have just related, you realize
+that despite his ignorance, appetite, and indolence, the Congo native
+has some desirable qualities. He is shiftless but not without human
+instincts. Nowhere are they better expressed than in his folklore.
+
+
+IV
+
+Two stops on the Congo River deserve special attention. In the Congo
+there began in 1911 an industry that will have an important bearing on
+the economic development of the Colony. It was the installation of the
+first plant of the Huileries du Congo Belge. This Company, which is an
+offshoot of the many Lever enterprises of England, resulted from the
+growing need of palm oil as a substitute for animal fat in soap-making.
+Lord Leverhulme, who was then Sir William Lever, obtained a concession
+for considerably more than a million acres of palm forests in the Congo.
+He began to open up so-called areas and install mills for boiling the
+fruit and drying the kernels. He now has eight areas, and two of them,
+Elizabetha and Alberta,--I visited both--are on the Congo River.
+
+For hundreds of years the natives have gathered the palm fruit and
+extracted the oil. Under their method of manufacture the waste was
+enormous. The blacks threw away the kernel because they were unaware of
+the valuable substance inside. Lord Leverhulme was the first to organize
+the industry on a big and scientific basis and it has justified his
+confidence and expenditure.
+
+Most people are familiar with the date and the cocoa-nut palms. From the
+days of the Bible they have figured in narrative and picture. The oil
+palm, on the other hand, is less known but much more valuable. It is the
+staff of life in the Congo and for that matter, practically all West
+Africa. Thousands of years ago its sap was used by the Egyptians for
+embalming the bodies of their kingly dead. Today it not only represents
+the most important agricultural industry of the Colony, having long
+since surpassed rubber as the premier product, but it has an almost
+bewildering variety of uses. It is food, drink and shelter. Out of the
+trunk the native extracts his wine; from the fruit, and this includes
+the kernel, are obtained oil for soap, salad dressing and margarine; the
+leaves provide a roof for the native houses; the fibre is made into
+mats, baskets or strings for fishing nets, while the wood goes into
+construction. Even the bugs that live on it are food for men.
+
+The "H. C. B." as the Huileries du Congo Belge is more commonly known in
+the Congo, really performed a courageous act in exploitation when it set
+up shop in the remote regions and devoted itself to an absolutely fresh
+enterprise, so far as extensive development is concerned, at a time when
+the rich and profitable products of the country were rubber, ivory and
+copal. The company's initiative, therefore, instigated the trade in
+oleaginous products which is so conspicuous in the economic life of the
+country.
+
+The installation at Alberta, while not so large as the Leverville area
+on the Kwilu River, will serve to show just what the corporation is
+doing. Five years ago this region was the jungle. Today it is the model
+settlement on the Congo River. The big brick office building stands on a
+brow of the hill overlooking the water. Not far away is the large mill
+where the palm fruit is reduced to oil and the kernels dried. Stretching
+away from the river is a long avenue of palms, flanked by the commodious
+brick bungalows of the white employes. The "H. C. B." maintains a store
+at each of its areas, where food and supplies are bought by the
+personnel. These stores are all operated by the Societe d'Entreprises
+Commerciales au Congo Belge, known locally under the name of "Sedec,"
+formed as its name indicated, with a view of benefiting by the great
+resources opened to commerce in the Colony.
+
+For miles in every direction the Company has laid out extensive palm
+plantations. In the Alberta region twenty-five hundred acres are in
+course of cultivation in what is known as the Eastern Development, while
+sixteen hundred more acres are embodied in the Western development. An
+oil palm will bear fruit within seven years after the young tree is
+planted. The fruit comes in what is called a _regime_, which resembles a
+huge bunch of grapes. It is a thick cluster of palm fruit. Each fruit is
+about the size of a large date. The outer portion, the pericarp, is
+almost entirely yellow oil encased in a thick skin. Imbedded in this oil
+is the kernel, which contains an even finer oil. The fruit is boiled
+down and the kernel, after a drying process, is exported in bags to
+England, where it is broken open and the contents used for salad oil or
+margarine.
+
+Before the war thousands of tons of palm oil and kernels were shipped
+from the West Coast of Africa to Germany every year. Now they are
+diverted to England where large kernel-crushing plants have been
+installed and the whole activity has become a British enterprise. With
+the eclipse of the German Colonial Empire in Africa it is not likely
+that she can regain this lost business.
+
+The creation of new palmeries is merely one phase of the company's
+development. One of its largest tasks is to safeguard the immense
+natural palmeries on its concessions. The oil palm requires constant
+attention. The undergrowth spreads rapidly and if it is not removed
+is liable to impair the life of the tree. Thousands of natives are
+employed on this work. A large knife something like the Cuban machete is
+used.
+
+[Illustration: RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS AT ALBERTA]
+
+[Illustration: THE COMTE DE FLANDRE]
+
+Harvesting the _regimes_ is a spectacular performance not without its
+element of danger. The _regime_ grows at the top of the tree, usually a
+height of sixty or seventy-five feet and sometimes more. The native
+literally walks up the trunk with the help of a loop made from some
+stout vine which encircles him. Arriving at the top he fixes his feet
+against the trunk, leans against the loop which holds him fast, and
+hacks away at the _regime_. It falls with a heavy thud and woe betide
+the human being or the animal it strikes. The natives will not cut fruit
+in rainy weather because many have slipped on the wet bark and fallen to
+their death.
+
+So wide is the Alberta fruit-producing area that a narrow-gauge railway
+is necessary to bring the fruit in to the mill. Along its line are
+various stations where the fruit is mobilized, stripped from the
+_regime_ and sent down for refining in baskets. Each station has a
+superintendent who lives on the spot. The personnel of all the staff in
+the Congo is almost equally divided between British and Belgians.
+
+While the "H. C. B." is the largest factor in the palm oil industry in
+the Congo, many tons of kernels are gathered every year by individuals
+who include thousands of natives. One reason why the savage takes
+naturally to this occupation is that it demands little work. All that he
+is required to do is to climb a tree in the jungle and lop off a
+_regime_. He uses the palm oil for his own needs or disposes of it to a
+member of his tribe and sells the kernels to the white man.
+
+The "H. C. B." is independent of all other water transport in the
+Congo. Its river tonnage aggregates more than 6,000, and in addition it
+has many oil barges on the various rivers where its vessels ply. The
+capacity of some of the barges is 250 tons of oil. They are usually
+lashed to the side of the steamer. The decks of these barges are often
+piled high with bags of kernels and become a favorite sleeping place for
+the black voyagers for whom the thousands of insects that lurk in them
+have no terrors. No bug inflicts a sharper sting than these pests who
+make their _habitat_ among the palm kernels.
+
+One of my fellow passengers on the "Comte de Flandre" was I. F. Braham,
+the Associate Managing Director of the "H. C. B." in the Congo. Long the
+friend and companion in Liberia of Sir Harry Johnston, he was a most
+desirable and congenial companion. It was on his suggestion and
+invitation that I spent the week at Alberta and he shared the visit. Our
+hosts were Major and Mrs. Claude Wallace.
+
+Major Wallace was the District Manager of the Alberta area and occupied
+a brick bungalow on the bank of the river. He is a pioneer in
+exploration in the French Congo and Liberia and went almost straight
+from the battlefields of France, where he served with distinction in the
+World War, out to his post in the Congo. His wife is a fine example of
+the white woman who has braved the dangers of the tropics. She left the
+luxury and convenience of European life to establish a home in the
+jungle.
+
+It is easy to spot the refining influence of the woman in the African
+habitation. You always see the effect long before you behold the cause.
+One of these effects is usually a neat garden. Mrs. Wallace had half an
+acre of English roses in front of her house. They were the only ones I
+saw in Central Africa. The average bachelor in this part of the world is
+not particularly scrupulous about the appearance of his house. The
+moment you observe curtains at the window you know that there is a
+female on the premises.
+
+My life at Alberta was one of the really delightful experiences in the
+Congo. Every morning I set out with Braham and Wallace on some tour of
+inspection. Often we rode part of the way on the little light railroad.
+The method of transport was unique. An ordinary bench is placed on a
+small flat car. The propelling power is furnished by two husky natives
+who stand on either side of the bench and literally shove the vehicle
+along with long sticks. It is like paddling a railroad canoe. This
+transportation freak is technically called a _maculla_. The strong-armed
+paddlers were able to develop an astonishing speed. I think that this is
+the only muscle-power railroad in the world. Light engines are employed
+for hauling the palm fruit trains.
+
+After our day in the field--for frequently we took our lunch with us--we
+returned before sunset and bathed and dressed for dinner. In the Congo
+only a madman would take a cold plunge. The most healthful immersion is
+in tepid water. More than one Englishman has paid the penalty with his
+life, by continuing his traditional cold bath in the tropics. This
+reminds me of a significant fact in connection with colonization.
+Everyone must admit that the Briton is the best colonizer in the world.
+One reason is that he knows how to rule the man of colour for he does it
+with fairness and firmness. Another lies in the fact that he not only
+keeps himself clean but he makes his environment sanitary.
+
+There is a tradition that the Constitution follows the flag. I contend
+that with the Englishman the bath-tub precedes the code of law and what
+is more important, it is in daily use. There are a good many bath-tubs
+in the Congo but they are employed principally as receptacles for food
+supplies and soiled linen.
+
+Those evenings at Alberta were as unforgettable as their setting. Braham
+and Wallace were not only men of the world but they had read extensively
+and had travelled much. A wide range of subjects came under discussion
+at that hospitable table whose spotless linen and soft shaded lights
+were more reminiscent of London and New York than suggestive of a
+far-away post on the Congo River on the edge of the wilderness.
+
+At Alberta as elsewhere, the "H. C. B." is a moral force. Each area has
+a doctor and a hospital. No detail of its medical work is more vital to
+the productive life of the Colony that the inoculation of the natives
+against sleeping sickness. This dread disease is the scourge of the
+Congo and every year takes toll of hundreds of thousands of natives. Nor
+is the white man immune. I saw a Belgian official dying of this
+loathsome malady in a hospital at Matadi and I shall never forget his
+ravings. The last stage of the illness is always a period when the
+victim becomes demented. The greatest boon that could possibly be held
+out for Central Africa today would be the prevention of sleeping
+sickness.
+
+Another constructive work carried out under the auspices of the "H. C.
+B." is embodied in the native schools. There is an excellent one at
+Alberta. It is conducted by the Catholic Fathers of the Scheut Mission.
+The children are trained to become wood-workers, machinists, painters,
+and carpenters. It is the Booker Washington idea transplanted in the
+jungle. The Scheut Missionaries and their Jesuit colleagues are doing
+an admirable service throughout the Congo. Some of them are infused with
+the spirit that animated Father Damien. Time, distance, and isolation
+count for naught with them. It is no uncommon thing to encounter in the
+bush a Catholic priest who has been on continuous service there for
+fifteen or twenty years without a holiday. At Luluaburg lives a Mother
+Superior who has been in the field for a quarter of a century without
+wandering more than two hundred miles from her field of operations.
+
+
+V
+
+Now for the last stage of the Congo River trip. Like so many of my other
+experiences in Africa it produced a surprise. One morning when we were
+about two hundred miles north of Kinshassa I heard the whir of a motor
+engine, a rare sound in those parts. I thought of aeroplanes and
+instinctively looked up. Flying overhead toward Coquilhatville was a
+300-horse power hydroplane containing two people. Upon inquiry I
+discovered that it was one of four machines engaged in carrying
+passengers, mail, and express between Kinshassa and Coquilhatville.
+
+The campaign against the Germans in East Africa proved the
+practicability of aeroplanes in the tropics. The Congo is the first of
+the Central African countries to dedicate aviation to commercial uses
+and this precedent is likely to be extensively followed. Fifteen
+hydroplanes have been ordered for the Congo River service which will
+eventually be extended to Stanleyville. Only those who have endured the
+agony of slow transport in the Congo can realize the blessing that air
+travel will confer.
+
+I was naturally curious to find out just what the African native thought
+of the aeroplane. The moment that the roar of the engine broke the
+morning silence, everybody on the boat rushed to some point of vantage
+to see the strange sight. The blacks slapped each other on the shoulder,
+pointed at the machine, and laughed and jabbered. Yet when my secretary
+asked a big Baluba if he did not think that the aeroplane was a
+wonderful thing the barbarian simply grunted and replied, "White man can
+do anything." He summed up the native attitude toward his conqueror. I
+believe that if a white man performed the most astounding feat of magic
+or necromancy the native would not express the slightest surprise.
+
+[Illustration: A TYPICAL OIL PALM FOREST]
+
+[Illustration: BRINGING IN THE PALM FRUIT]
+
+At Kwamouth, where the Kasai flows into the Congo River, we entered the
+so-called "Channel." From this point down to Stanley Pool the river is
+deep and the current is swift. This means that for a brief time the
+traveller enjoys immunity from the danger of running aground on a
+sandbank. The whole country-side is changed. Instead of the low and
+luxuriantly-wooded shores the banks become higher with each passing
+hour. Soon the land adjacent to the river merges into foothills and
+these in turn taper off into mountains. The effect is noble and
+striking. No wonder Stanley went into ecstasies over this scenery. He
+declared on more than one occasion that it was as inspiring as any he
+had seen in Wales or Scotland.
+
+In the "Channel" another surprise awaits the traveller. The mornings are
+bitterly raw. This is probably due to the high ground on either side of
+the river and the strong currents of air that sweep up the stream. I can
+frankly say that I really suffered from the cold within striking
+distance of the equator. I did not feel comfortable until I had donned a
+heavy sweater.
+
+This sudden change in temperature explains one reason why so many Congo
+natives die under forty. They are scantily clad, perspire freely, and
+lie out at night with scarcely any covering. They go to sleep in a humid
+atmosphere and wake up with the temperature forty degrees lower. The
+natural result is that half of them constantly have colds and the
+moment pneumonia develops they succumb. Congestion of the lungs vies
+with sleeping sickness as the ravager of Middle Africa, and especially
+certain parts of the Congo.
+
+Kinshassa is situated on Stanley Pool, a lake-like expansion of the
+Congo more than two hundred square miles in area. It is dotted with
+islands. Nearly one-third of the northern shore is occupied by the rocky
+formations that Stanley named Dover Cliffs. They reminded him of the
+famous white cliffs of England and with the sunlight on them they do
+bear a strong resemblance to one of the familiar signposts of Albion.
+More than one Englishman emerging from the jungle after long service
+remote from civilization has gotten a thrill of home at the name and
+sight of these hills.
+
+Stanley Pool has always been associated in my mind with one of the most
+picturesque episodes in Stanley's life. He tells about it in his
+monumental work on the Congo Free State and again relates it in his
+Autobiography. It deals with Ngalyema, who was chief of the Stanley Pool
+District in the early eighties. He demanded and received a large
+quantity of goods for the permission to establish a station here. After
+the explorer had camped within ten miles of the Pool the old pirate
+pretended that he had not received the goods and sought to extort more.
+Stanley refused to be bullied, whereupon the chief threatened to attack
+him in force. Let Stanley now tell the story, for it is an illustration
+of the way he combated the usury and cunning of the Congo native.
+
+    I had hung a great Chinese gong conspicuously near the principal
+    tent. Ngalyema's curiosity would be roused. All my men were hidden,
+    some in the steamboat on top of the wagon, and in its shadow was a
+    cool place where the warriors would gladly rest after a ten-mile
+    march. Other of my men lay still as death under tarpaulins, under
+    bundles of grass, and in the bush round about the camp. By the time
+    the drum-taps and horns announced Ngalyema's arrival, the camp
+    seemed abandoned except by myself and a few small boys. I was
+    indolently seated in a chair reading a book, and appeared too lazy
+    to notice anyone; but, suddenly looking up and seeing my "brother
+    Ngalyema" and his warriors, scowlingly regarding me, I sprang up and
+    seized his hands, and affectionately bade him welcome, in the name
+    of sacred fraternity, and offered him my own chair.
+
+    He was strangely cold, and apparently disgruntled, and said:--
+
+    "Has not my brother forgotten his road? What does he mean by coming
+    to this country?"
+
+    "Nay, it is Ngalyema who has forgotten the blood-bond which exists
+    between us. It is Ngalyema who has forgotten the mountains of goods
+    which I paid him. What words are these of my brother?"
+
+    "Be warned, Rock-Breaker. Go back before it is too late. My elders
+    and people all cry out against allowing the white man to come into
+    our country. Therefore, go back before it be too late. Go back, I
+    say, the way you came."
+
+    Speech and counter-speech followed. Ngalyema had exhausted his
+    arguments; but it was not easy to break faith and be uncivil, with
+    plausible excuse. His eyes were reaching round seeking to discover
+    an excuse to fight, when they rested on the round, burnished face of
+    the Chinese gong.
+
+    "What is that?" he said.
+
+    "Ah, that--that is a fetish."
+
+    "A fetish! A fetish for what?"
+
+    "It is a war-fetish, Ngalyema. The slightest sound of that would
+    fill this empty camp with hundreds of angry warriors; they would
+    drop from above, they would spring up from the ground, from the
+    forest about, from everywhere."
+
+    "Sho! Tell that story to the old women, and not to a chief like
+    Ngalyema. My boy tells me it is a kind of a bell. Strike it and let
+    me hear it."
+
+    "Oh, Ngalyema, my brother, the consequences would be too dreadful!
+    Do not think of such a thing!"
+
+    "Strike it, I say."
+
+    "Well, to oblige my dear brother Ngalyema, I will."
+
+    And I struck hard and fast, and the clangourous roll rang out like
+    thunder in the stillness. Only for a few seconds, however, for a
+    tempest of human voices was heard bursting into frightful discords,
+    and from above, right upon the heads of the astonished warriors,
+    leaped yelling men; and from the tents, the huts, the forest round
+    about, they came by sixes, dozens, and scores, yelling like madmen,
+    and seemingly animated with uncontrollable rage. The painted
+    warriors became panic-stricken; they flung their guns and
+    powder-kegs away, forgot their chief, and all thoughts of loyalty,
+    and fled on the instant, fear lifting their heels high in the air;
+    or, tugging at their eye-balls, and kneading the senses confusedly,
+    they saw, heard, and suspected nothing, save that the limbo of
+    fetishes had suddenly broken loose!
+
+    But Ngalyema and his son did not fly. They caught the tails of my
+    coat, and we began to dance from side to side, a loving triplet,
+    myself being foremost to ward off the blow savagely aimed at my
+    "brothers," and cheerfully crying out, "Hold fast to me, my
+    brothers. I will defend you to the last drop of my blood. Come one,
+    come all."
+
+    Presently the order was given, "Fall in!" and quickly the leaping
+    forms became rigid, and the men stood in two long lines in beautiful
+    order, with eyes front, as though "at attention!" Then Ngalyema
+    relaxed his hold of my coat-tails, and crept from behind, breathing
+    more freely; and, lifting his hand to his mouth, exclaimed, in
+    genuine surprise, "Eh, Mamma! where did all these people come from?"
+
+    "Ah, Ngalyema, did I not tell you that thing was a powerful fetish?
+    Let me strike it again, and show you what else it can do."
+
+    "No! no! no!" he shrieked. "I have seen enough!"
+
+    The day ended peacefully. I was invited to hasten on to Stanley
+    Pool. The natives engaged themselves by the score to assist me in
+    hauling the wagons. My progress was thenceforth steady and
+    uninterrupted, and in due time the wagons and good-columns arrived
+    at their destination.
+
+[Illustration: A SPECIMEN OF CICATRIZATION]
+
+[Illustration: A SANKURU WOMAN PLAYING NATIVE DRAUGHTS]
+
+Kinshassa was an accident. Leopoldville, which is situated about ten
+miles away and the capital of the Congo-Kasai Province, was expected to
+become the center of white life and enterprise in this vicinity. It was
+founded by Stanley in the early eighties and named in honour of the
+Belgian king. It commands the river, cataracts, forests and mountains.
+
+Commerce, however, fixed Kinshassa as its base of operation, and its
+expansion has been astonishing for that part of the world. It is a
+bustling port and you can usually see half a dozen steamers tied up at
+the bank. There is a population of several hundred white people and many
+thousands of natives. The Banque du Congo Belge has its principal
+establishment here and there are scores of well-stocked mercantile
+establishments. With the exception of Matadi and Thysville it has the
+one livable hotel in the Congo. Moreover, it rejoices in that now
+indispensable feature of civic life which is expressed in a cinema
+theatre. In the tropics all motion picture houses are open-air
+institutions.
+
+In cataloguing Kinshassa's attractions I must not omit the feature that
+had the strongest and most immediate lure for me. It was a barber shop
+and I made tracks for it as soon as I arrived. I was not surprised to
+find that the proprietor was a Portuguese who had made a small fortune
+trimming the Samson locks of the scores of agents who stream into the
+little town every week. He is the only barber in the place and there is
+no competition this side of Stanleyville, more than a thousand miles
+away.
+
+The seasoned residents of the Congo would never think of calling
+Kinshassa by any other name than "Kin." In the same way Leopoldville is
+dubbed "Leo." Kinshassa is laid out in streets, has electric lights, and
+within the past twelve months about twenty automobiles have been
+acquired by its residents. There is a gay social life, and on July
+first, the anniversary of the birth of the Congo Free State, and when a
+celebration is usually held, I saw a spirited football game between
+British and Belgian teams. Most of the big international British trading
+companies that operate in Africa have branches in Kinshassa and it is
+not difficult to assemble an English-speaking quorum.
+
+In the matter of transportation Kinshassa is really the key to the heart
+of the Congo. It is the rail-head of the narrow-gauge line from Matadi
+and all merchandise that comes from Europe is transshipped at this point
+to the boats that go up the Congo river as far as Stanleyville. Thus
+every ton of freight and every traveller bound for the interior must
+pass through Kinshassa. When the railway from the Katanga is constructed
+its prestige will increase.
+
+Kinshassa owes a part of its development to the Huileries du Congo
+Belge. Its plant dominates the river front. There are a dozen huge tanks
+into which the palm-oil flows from the barges. The fluid is then run
+into casks and sent down by rail to Matadi, whence it goes in steamers
+to Europe. More than a hundred white men are in the service of the "H.
+C. B." at Stanley Pool. They live in standardized brick bungalows in
+their own area which is equipped with tennis courts and a library. On
+all English fete days the Union Jack is hoisted and there is much
+festivity.
+
+Two months had elapsed since I entered the Congo and I had travelled
+about two thousand miles within its borders. This journey, short as it
+seems as distances go these days, would have taken Stanley nearly two
+years to accomplish in the face of the obstacles that hampered him. I
+had only carried out part of my plan. The Kasai was calling. The time
+was now at hand when I would retrace my way up the Congo River and turn
+my face towards the Little America that nestles far up in the wilds.
+
+[Illustration: THE BELGIAN CONGO]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI--AMERICA IN THE CONGO
+
+
+I
+
+Go up the Kasai River to Djoko Punda and you believe, despite the
+background of tropical vegetation and the ever-present naked savage,
+that for the moment you are back in the United States. You see American
+jitneys scooting through the jungle; you watch five-ton American
+tractors hauling heavy loads along the sandy roads; you hear American
+slang and banter on all sides, and if you are lucky enough to be invited
+to a meal you get American hot cakes with real American maple syrup. The
+air tingles with Yankee energy and vitality.
+
+All this means that you have arrived at the outpost of Little America in
+the Belgian Congo--the first actual signboard of the least known and
+most picturesque piece of American financial venturing abroad. It has
+helped to redeem a vast region from barbarism and opened up an area of
+far-reaching economic significance. At Djoko Punda you enter the domain
+of the Forminiere, the corporation founded by a monarch and which has a
+kingdom for a partner. Woven into its story is the romance of a one-time
+barefoot Virginia boy who became the commercial associate of a king.
+
+What is the Forminiere and what does it do? The name is a contraction of
+Societe Internationale Forestiere & Miniere du Congo. In the Congo,
+where companies have long titles, it is the fashion to reduce them to
+the dimensions of a cable code-word. Thus the high-sounding Compagnie
+Industrielle pour les Transports et Commerce au Stanley Pool is
+mercifully shaved to "Citas." This information, let me say, is a
+life-saver for the alien with a limited knowledge of French and whose
+pronunciation is worse.
+
+Clearly to understand the scope and purpose of the Forminiere you must
+know that it is one of the three companies that have helped to shape the
+destiny of the Congo. I encountered the first--the Union Miniere--the
+moment I entered the Katanga. The second is the Huileries du Congo
+Belge, the palm-oil producers whose bailiwick abuts upon the Congo and
+Kwilu Rivers. Now we come to the third and the most important agency, so
+far as American interest is affected, in the Forminiere, whose empire is
+the immense section watered by the Kasai River and which extends across
+the border into Angola. In the Union Miniere you got the initial hint of
+America's part in the development of the Congo. That part, however, was
+entirely technical. With the Forminiere you have the combination of
+American capital and American engineering in an achievement that is, to
+say the least, unusual.
+
+The moment I dipped into Congo business history I touched the Forminiere
+for the reason that it was the pet project of King Leopold, and the last
+and favorite corporate child of his economic statesmanship. Moreover,
+among the leading Belgian capitalists interested were men who had been
+Stanley's comrades and who had helped to blaze the path of civilization
+through the wilds. King Albert spoke of it to me in terms of
+appreciation and more especially of the American end. I felt a sense of
+pride in the financial courage and physical hardihood of my countrymen
+who had gone so far afield. I determined to see the undertaking at
+first hand.
+
+My experience with it proved to be the most exciting of my whole African
+adventure. All that I had hitherto undergone was like a springtime
+frolic compared to the journey up the Kasai and through the jungle that
+lurks beyond. I saw the war-like savage on his native heath; I travelled
+with my own caravan through the forest primeval; I employed every
+conceivable kind of transport from the hammock swung on a pole and
+carried on the shoulders of husky natives, to the automobile. The
+primitive and modern met at almost every stage of the trip which proved
+to be first cousin to a thriller from beginning to end. Heretofore I had
+been under the spell of the Congo River. Now I was to catch the magic of
+its largest tributary, the Kasai.
+
+Long before the Forminiere broke out its banner, America had been
+associated with the Congo. It is not generally known that Henry M.
+Stanley, who was born John Rowlands, achieved all the feats which made
+him an international figure under the name of his American benefactor
+who adopted him in New Orleans after he had run away to sea from a Welsh
+workhouse. He was for years to all intents and purposes an American, and
+carried the American flag on two of his famous expeditions.
+
+President Cleveland was the first chief dignitary of a nation to
+recognize the Congo Free State in the eighties, and his name is
+perpetuated in Mount Cleveland, near the headwaters of the Congo River.
+An American Minister to Belgium, General H. S. Sanford, had a
+conspicuous part in all the first International African Associations
+formed by King Leopold to study the Congo situation. This contact,
+however, save Stanley's share, was diplomatic and a passing phase. It
+was the prelude to the constructive and permanent part played by the
+American capitalists in the Forminiere, chief of whom is Thomas F. Ryan.
+
+The reading world associates Ryan with the whirlpool of Big Finance. He
+ruled New York traction and he recast the tobacco world. Yet nothing
+appealed to his imagination and enthusiasm like the Congo. He saw it in
+very much the same way that Rhodes viewed Rhodesia. Every great American
+master of capital has had his particular pet. There is always some
+darling of the financial gods. The late J. P. Morgan, for example,
+regarded the United States Steel Corporation as his prize performance
+and talked about it just like a doting father speaks of a successful
+son. The Union Pacific System was the apple of E. H. Harriman's eye, and
+the New York Central was a Vanderbilt fetish for decades. So with Ryan
+and the Congo. Other powerful Americans have become associated with him,
+as you will see later on, but it was the tall, alert, clear-eyed
+Virginian, who rose from penniless clerk to be a Wall Street king, who
+first had the vision on this side of the Atlantic, and backed it with
+his millions. I am certain that if Ryan had gone into the Congo earlier
+and had not been engrossed in his American interests, he would probably
+have done for the whole of Central Africa what Rhodes did for South
+Africa.
+
+We can now get at the beginnings of the Forminiere. Most large
+corporations radiate from a lawyer's office. With the Forminiere it was
+otherwise. The center of inspiration was the stone palace at Brussels
+where King Leopold II, King of the Belgians, held forth. The year 1906
+was not a particularly happy one for him. The atrocity campaign was at
+its height abroad and the Socialists were pounding him at home.
+Despite the storm of controversy that raged about him one clear idea
+shone amid the encircling gloom. That idea was to bulwark the Congo Free
+State, of which he was also sovereign, before it was ceded to Belgium.
+
+[Illustration: THOMAS F. RYAN]
+
+Between 1879 and 1890 Leopold personally supported the cost of creating
+and maintaining the Free State. It represented an outlay of more than
+$2,500,000. Afterwards he had adequate return in the revenues from
+rubber and ivory. But Leopold was a royal spender in the fullest sense.
+He had a variety of fads that ranged from youthful and beguiling
+femininity to the building of palaces and the beautifying of his own
+country. He lavished millions on making Brussels a sumptuous capital and
+Ostend an elaborate seaside resort. With his private life we are not
+concerned. Leopold the pleasure-seeker was one person; Leopold the
+business man was another, and as such he was unique among the rulers of
+Europe.
+
+Leopold contradicted every known tradition of royalty. The king business
+is usually the business of spending unearned money. Your royal
+spendthrift is a much more familiar figure than the royal miser.
+Moreover, nobody ever associates productive power with a king save in
+the big family line. His task is inherited and with it a bank account
+sufficient to meet all needs. This immunity from economic necessity is a
+large price to pay for lack of liberty in speech and action. The
+principal job of most kings, as we all know, is to be a noble and
+acquiescent figure-head, to pin decorations on worthy persons, and to
+open public exhibitions.
+
+Leopold did all of these things but they were incidental to his larger
+task. He was an insurgent from childhood. He violated all the rules of
+the royal game not only by having a vision and a mind all his own but
+in possessing a keen commercial instinct. Geography was his hobby at
+school. Like Rhodes, he was forever looking at maps. When he became king
+he saw that the hope of Belgium economically lay in colonization. In
+1860 he made a journey to the Far East, whence he returned deeply
+impressed with trade opportunities in China. Afterwards he was the prime
+mover in the construction of the Pekin-Hankow Railway. I do not think
+most persons know that Leopold at one time tried to establish a Belgian
+colony in Ethiopia. Another act in his life that has escaped the casual
+biographer was his effort to purchase the Philippines from Spain. Now
+you can see why he seized upon the Congo as a colonizing possibility the
+moment he read Henry M. Stanley's first article about it in the London
+Telegraph.
+
+There was a vital reason why Belgium should have a big and prosperous
+colony. Her extraordinary internal development demanded an outlet
+abroad. The doughty little country so aptly called "The Cockpit of
+Europe," and which bore the brunt of the first German advance in the
+Great War, is the most densely populated in the world. It has two
+hundred and forty-seven inhabitants for each square kilometer. England
+only counts one hundred and forty-six, Germany one hundred and
+twenty-five, France seventy-two, and the United States thirteen. The
+Belgians had to have economic elbow room and Leopold was determined that
+they should have it.
+
+His creation of the Congo Free State was just one evidence of his
+shrewdness and diplomacy. Half a dozen of the great powers had their eye
+on this untouched garden spot in Central Africa and would have risked
+millions of dollars and thousands of men to grab it. Leopold, through a
+series of International Associations, engineered the famous Berlin
+Congress of 1884 and with Bismarck's help put the Free State on the map,
+with himself as steward. It was only a year ago in Germany that a former
+high-placed German statesman admitted to me that one of the few
+fundamental mistakes that the Iron Chancellor ever made was to permit
+Leopold to snatch the Congo from under the very eyes and hands of
+Germany. I quote this episode to show that when it came to business
+Leopold made every king in Europe look like an office boy. Even so
+masterful a manipulator of men as Cecil Rhodes failed with him. Rhodes
+sought his aid in his trans-African telegraph scheme but Leopold was too
+shrewd for him. After his first audience with the Belgian king Rhodes
+said to Robert Williams, "I thought I was clever but I was no match for
+him."
+
+The only other modern king interested in business was the former Kaiser,
+Mr. Wilhelm Hohenzollern. Although he has no business sense in the way
+that Leopold had it, he always had a keen appreciation of big business
+as an imperial prop. Like Leopold, he had a congested country and
+realized that permanent expansion lay in colonization. The commercial
+magnates of Germany used him for their own ends but their teamwork
+advanced the whole empire. Wilhelm was a silent partner in the potash,
+shipping, and electric-machinery trusts. He earned whatever he received
+because he was in every sense an exalted press-agent,--a sort of
+glorified publicity promoter. His strong point was to go about
+proclaiming the merits of German wares and he always made it a point to
+scatter samples. On a visit to Italy he left behind a considerable
+quantity of soap. There was a great rush to get these royal left-overs.
+Two weeks later a small army of German soap salesmen descended upon the
+country selling this identical product.
+
+Whatever may be said of Leopold, one thing is certain. He was not small.
+Wilhelm used the brains of other men; Leopold employed his own, and
+every capitalist who went up against him paid tribute to this asset.
+
+We can now go back to 1906, the year that was to mark the advent of
+America into the Congo. Leopold knew that the days of the Congo as a
+Free State were numbered. His personally-conducted stewardship of the
+Colony was being assailed by the Socialists on one hand and the atrocity
+proclaimers on the other. Leopold was undoubtedly sincere in his desire
+to economically safeguard the African possession before it passed out of
+his control. In any event, during the summer of that year he sent a
+message to Ryan asking him to confer with him at Brussels. The summons
+came out of a clear sky and at first the American financier paid no
+attention to it. He was then on a holiday in Switzerland. When a second
+invitation came from the king, he accepted, and in September there began
+a series of meetings between the two men which resulted in the
+organization of the Forminiere and with it the dawn of a real
+international epoch in American enterprise.
+
+In the light of our immense riches the timidity of American capital in
+actual constructive enterprise overseas is astonishing. Scrutinize the
+world business map and you see how shy it has been. We own rubber
+plantations in Sumatra, copper mines in Chile, gold interests in
+Ecuador, and have dabbled in Russian and Siberian mining. These
+undertakings are slight, however, compared with the scope of the world
+field and our own wealth. Mexico, where we have extensive smelting, oil,
+rubber, mining and agricultural investments, is so close at hand that it
+scarcely seems like a foreign country. Strangely enough our capital
+there has suffered more than in any other part of the globe. The
+spectacle of American pioneering in the Congo therefore takes on a
+peculiar significance.
+
+There are two reasons why our capital has not wandered far afield. One
+is that we have a great country with enormous resources and consequently
+almost unlimited opportunities for the employment of cash at home. The
+other lies in the fact that American capital abroad is not afforded the
+same protection granted the money of other countries. Take British
+capital. It is probably the most courageous of all. The sun never sets
+on it. England is a small country and her money, to spread its wings,
+must go elsewhere. Moreover, Britain zealously safeguards her Nationals
+and their investments, and we, I regret to say, have not always done
+likewise. The moment an Englishman or the English flag is insulted a
+warship speeds to the spot and John Bull wants to know the reason why.
+
+Why did Leopold seek American capital and why did he pick out Thomas F.
+Ryan? There are several motives and I will deal with them in order. In
+the first place American capital is about the only non-political money
+in the world. The English pound, for example, always flies the Union
+Jack and is a highly sensitive commodity. When England puts money into
+an enterprise she immediately makes the Foreign Office an accessory.
+German overseas enterprise is even more meddlesome. It has always been
+the first aid to poisonous and pernicious penetration. Even French
+capital is flavoured with imperialism despite the fact that it is the
+product of a democracy. Our dollars are not hitched to the star of
+empire. We have no dreams of world conquest. It is the safest
+politically to deal with, and Leopold recognized this fact.
+
+In the second place he did not want anything to interfere with his Congo
+rubber industry. Now we get to the real reason, perhaps, why he sent for
+Ryan. In conjunction with the late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Ryan had
+developed the rubber industry in Mexico, by extracting rubber from the
+guayele shrub which grows wild in the desert. Leopold knew this--he had
+a way of finding out about things--and he sought to kill two birds with
+one stone. He wanted this Mexican process and at the same time he needed
+capital for the Congo. In any event, Ryan went to see him and the
+Forminiere was born.
+
+There is no need of rehearsing here the concrete details of this
+enterprise. All we want are the essential facts. Leopold realized that
+the Forminiere was the last business venture of his life and he
+projected it on a truly kingly scale. It was the final chance for huge
+grants and the result was that the Forminiere received the mining and
+mineral rights to more than 7,000,000 acres, and other concessions for
+agriculture aggregating 2,500,000 acres in addition.
+
+The original capital was only 3,000,000 francs but this has been
+increased from time to time until it is now more than 10,000,000 francs.
+The striking feature of the organization was the provision inserted by
+Leopold that made Belgium a partner. One-half of the shares were
+assigned to the Crown. The other half was divided into two parts. One of
+these parts was subscribed by the King and the Societe Generale of
+Belgium, and the other was taken in its entirety by Ryan. Subsequently
+Ryan took in as associates Daniel Guggenheim, Senator Aldrich, Harry
+Payne Whitney and John Hays Hammond. When Leopold died his share went to
+his heirs. Upon the death of Aldrich his interest was acquired by Ryan,
+who is the principal American owner. No shares have ever been sold and
+none will be. The original trust certificate issued to Ryan and
+Guggenheim remains intact. The company therefore remains a close
+corporation in every respect and as such is unique among kindred
+enterprises.
+
+
+II
+
+At this point the question naturally arises--what is the Societe
+Generale? To ask it in Belgium would be on a par with inquiring the name
+of the king. Its bank notes are in circulation everywhere and it is
+known to the humblest peasant.
+
+The Societe Generale was organized in 1822 and is therefore one of the
+oldest, if not the oldest, joint stock bank of the Continent. The
+general plan of the famous Deutsche Bank of Berlin, which planted the
+German commercial flag everywhere, and which provided a large part of
+the bone and sinew of the Teutonic world-wide exploitation campaign, was
+based upon it. With finance as with merchandising, the German is a prize
+imitator.
+
+The Societe Generale, however, is much more than a bank. It is the
+dynamo that drives Belgian enterprise throughout the globe. We in
+America pride ourselves on the fact that huge combinations of capital
+geared up to industry are a specialty entirely our own. We are much
+mistaken. Little Belgium has in the Societe an agency for development
+unique among financial institutions. Its imposing marble palace on the
+Rue Royale is the nerve center of a corporate life that has no
+geographical lines. With a capital of 62,000,000 francs it has piled up
+reserves of more than 400,000,000 francs. In addition to branches called
+"filial banks" throughout Belgium, it also controls the powerful "Banque
+pour l'Etranger," which is established in London, Paris, New York,
+Cairo, and the Far East.
+
+One distinctive feature of the Societe Generale is its close alliance
+with the Government. It is a sort of semi-official National Treasury and
+performs for Belgium many of the functions that the Bank of England
+transacts for the United Kingdom. But it has infinitely more vigour and
+push than the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street in London. Its leading
+officials are required to appear on all imposing public occasions such
+as coronations and the opening of Parliament. The Belgian Government
+applies to the Societe Generale whenever any national financial
+enterprise is to be inaugurated and counts upon it to take the initial
+steps. Thus it became the backbone of Leopold's ramified projects and it
+was natural that he should invoke its assistance in the organization of
+the Forminiere.
+
+[Illustration: JEAN JADOT]
+
+Long before the Forminiere came into being, the Societe Generale was the
+chief financial factor in the Congo. With the exception of the Huileries
+du Congo Belge, which is British, it either dominates or has large
+holdings in every one of the sixteen major corporations doing business
+in the Colony and whose combined total capitalization is more than
+200,000,000 francs. This means that it controls railways and river
+transport, and the cotton, gold, rubber, ivory and diamond output.
+
+The custodians of this far-flung financial power are the money kings of
+Belgium. Chief among them is Jean Jadot, Governor of the Societe
+Generale--the institution still designates its head by this ancient
+title--and President of the Forminiere. In him and his colleagues you
+find those elements of self-made success so dear to the heart of the
+human interest historian. It would be difficult to find anywhere a more
+picturesque group of men than those who, through their association with
+King Leopold and the Societe, have developed the Congo and so many other
+enterprises.
+
+Jadot occupies today the same position in Belgium that the late J. P.
+Morgan held in his prime in America. He is the foremost capitalist.
+Across the broad, flat-topped desk of his office in that marble palace
+in the Rue Royale the tides of Belgian finance ebb and flow. Just as
+Morgan's name made an underwriting in New York so does Jadot's put the
+stamp of authority on it in Brussels. Morgan inherited a great name and
+a fortune. Jadot made his name and his millions.
+
+When you analyze the lives of American multi-millionaires you find a
+curious repetition of history. Men like John D. Rockefeller, Henry H.
+Rogers, Thomas F. Ryan, and Russell Sage began as grocery clerks in
+small towns. Something in the atmosphere created by spice and sugar must
+have developed the money-making germ. With the plutocrats of Belgium it
+was different. Practically all of them, and especially those who ruled
+the financial institutions, began as explorers or engineers. This shows
+the intimate connection that exists between Belgium and her overseas
+interests.
+
+Jadot is a good illustration. At twenty he graduated as engineer from
+Louvain University. At thirty-five he had directed the construction of
+the tramways of Cairo and of the Lower Egyptian Railways. He was now
+caught up in Leopold's great dream of Belgian expansion. The moment that
+the king obtained the concession for constructing the 1,200 mile railway
+from Pekin to Hankow he sent Jadot to China to take charge. Within eight
+years he completed this task in the face of almost insuperable
+difficulties, including a Boxer uprising, which cost the lives of some
+of his colleagues and tested his every resource.
+
+In 1905 he entered the Societe Generale. At once he became fired with
+Leopold's enthusiasm for the Congo and the necessity for making it an
+outlet for Belgium. Jadot was instrumental in organizing the Union
+Miniere and was also the compelling force behind the building of the
+Katanga Railway. In 1912 he became Vice Governor of the Societe and the
+following year assumed the Governorship. In addition to being President
+of the Forminiere he is also head of the Union Miniere and of the new
+railroad which is to connect the Katanga with the Lower Congo.
+
+When you meet Jadot you are face to face with a human organization
+tingling with nervous vitality. He reminds me more of E. H. Harriman
+than of any other American empire builder that I have met, and like
+Harriman he seems to be incessantly bound up to the telephone. He is
+keen, quick, and forceful and talks as rapidly as he thinks. Almost
+slight of body, he at first gives the impression of being a student for
+his eyes are deep and thoughtful. There is nothing meditative in his
+manner, however, for he is a live wire in the fullest American sense.
+Every time I talked with him I went away with a new wonder at his stock
+of world information. Men of the Jadot type never climb to the heights
+they attain without a reason. In his case it is first and foremost an
+accurate knowledge of every undertaking. He never goes into a project
+without first knowing all about it--a helpful rule, by the way, that the
+average person may well observe in the employment of his money.
+
+If Jadot is a live wire, then his confrere, Emile Francqui, is a whole
+battery. Here you touch the most romantic and many-sided career in all
+Belgian financial history. It reads like a melodrama and is packed with
+action and adventure. I could almost write a book about any one of its
+many stirring phases.
+
+At fourteen Francqui was a penniless orphan. He worked his way through a
+regimental school and at twenty was commissioned a sub-lieutenant. It
+was 1885 and the Congo Free State had just been launched. Having studied
+engineering he was sent out at once to Boma to join the Topographic
+Brigade. During this first stay in the Congo he was in charge of a
+boat-load of workmen engaged in wharf construction. The captain of a
+British gunboat hailed him and demanded that he stop. Francqui replied,
+
+"If you try to stop me I will lash my boat to yours and destroy it with
+dynamite." He had no further trouble.
+
+After three years service in the Congo he returned to Brussels and
+became the military instructor of Prince Albert, now King of the
+Belgians. The African fever was in his veins. He heard that a mission
+was about to depart for Zanzibar and East Africa. A knowledge of English
+was a necessary part of the equipment of the chief officer. Francqui
+wanted this job but he did not know a syllable of English. He went to a
+friend and confided his ambition.
+
+"Are you willing to take a chance with one word?" asked his colleague.
+
+"I am," answered the young officer.
+
+He thereupon acquired the word "yes," his friend's injunction being, "If
+you say 'yes' to every question you can probably carry it off."
+
+Francqui thereupon went to the Foreign Office and was immediately asked
+in English:
+
+"Can you speak English?"
+
+"Yes," was his immediate retort.
+
+"Are you willing to undertake the hazards of this journey to Zanzibar?"
+queried the interrogator.
+
+"Yes," came the reply.
+
+Luck was with Francqui for, as his good angel had prophesied, his one
+word of English met every requirement and he got the assignment. Since
+that time, I might add, he has acquired a fluent command of the English
+language. Francqui has always been willing to take a chance and lead a
+forlorn hope.
+
+It was in the early nineties that his exploits made his name one of the
+greatest in African conquest and exploration. He went out to the Congo
+as second in command of what was known as the Bia Expedition, sent to
+explore the Katanga and adjacent territory. After two hard years of
+incessant campaigning the expedition fell into hard lines. Captain Bia
+succumbed to smallpox and the column encountered every conceivable
+hardship. Men died by the score and there was no food. Francqui took
+charge, and by his indomitable will held the force together, starving
+and suffering with his men. During this experience he travelled more
+than 5,000 miles on foot and through a region where no other white man
+had ever gone before. He explored the Luapula, the headwaters of the
+Congo, and opened up a new world to civilization. No other single Congo
+expedition save that of Stanley made such an important contribution to
+the history of the Colony.
+
+Most men would have been satisfied to rest with this achievement. With
+Francqui it simply marked a milepost in his life. In 1896, when he
+resigned from the army, Leopold had fixed his eyes on China as a scene
+of operations, and he sent Francqui there to clinch the Pekin-Hankow
+concession, which he did. In the course of these negotiations he met
+Jadot, who was later to become his associate both in the Societe
+Generale and in the Forminiere.
+
+In 1901 Francqui again went to China, this time as agent of the
+Compagnie d'Orient, which coveted the coal mines of Kaiping that were
+supposed to be among the richest in the world. The British and Germans
+also desired this valuable property which had been operated for some
+years by a Chinese company. As usual, Francqui got what he went after
+and took possession of the property. The crude Chinese method of mining
+had greatly impaired the workings and they had to be entirely
+reconstructed. Among the engineers employed was an alert, smooth-faced,
+keen-minded young American named Herbert Hoover.
+
+Upon his return to Brussels Francqui allied himself with Colonel Thys,
+who was head of the Banque d'Outremer, the rival of the Societe
+Generale. After he had mastered the intricacies of banking he became a
+director of the Societe and with Jadot forged to the front in finance.
+If Jadot stood as the Morgan, then Francqui became the Stillman of the
+Belgian money world.
+
+Then came the Great War and the German avalanche which overwhelmed
+Belgium. Her banks were converted into hospitals; her industry lay
+prostrate; her people faced starvation. Some vital agency was necessary
+to centralize relief at home in the same way that the Commission for
+Relief in Belgium,--the famous "C. R. B."--crystallized it abroad.
+
+The Comite Rationale was formed by Belgians to feed and clothe the
+native population and it became the disbursing agent for the "C. R. B."
+Francqui was chosen head of this body and directed it until the
+armistice. It took toll of all his energy, diplomacy and instinct for
+organization. Needless to say it was one of the most difficult of all
+relief missions in the war. Francqui was a loyal Belgian and he was
+surrounded by the suspicious and domineering German conquerors. Yet
+they trusted him, and his word in Belgium for more than four years was
+absolute law. He was, in truth, a benevolent dictator.
+
+[Illustration: EMILE FRANCQUI]
+
+His war life illustrates one of the quaint pranks that fate often plays.
+As soon as the "C. R. B." was organized in London Francqui hastened over
+to England to confer with the American organizers. To his surprise and
+delight he encountered in its master spirit and chairman, the
+smooth-faced young engineer whom he had met out in the Kaiping coal
+mines before. It was the first time that he and Hoover had seen each
+other since their encounter in China. They now worked shoulder to
+shoulder in the monster mercy of all history.
+
+Francqui is blunt, silent, aggressive. When Belgium wants something done
+she instinctively turns to him. In 1920, after the delay in fixing the
+German reparation embarrassed the country, and liquid cash was
+imperative, he left Brussels on three days' notice and within a
+fortnight from the time he reached New York had negotiated a
+fifty-million-dollar loan. He is as potent in official life as in
+finance for as Special Minister of State without portfolio he is a real
+power behind a real throne.
+
+Although Francqui is a director in the Societe Generale, he is also what
+we would call Chairman of the Board of Banque d'Outremer. This shows
+that the well-known institution of "community of interests" is not
+confined to the United States. With Jadot he represents the Societe in
+the Forminiere Board. I have used these two men to illustrate the type
+represented by the Belgian financial kings. I could mention various
+others. They include Alexander Delcommune, famous as Congo fighter and
+explorer, who is one of the leading figures of the Banque d'Outremer;
+Edmond Solvay, the industrial magnate, and Edward Bunge, the Antwerp
+merchant prince. Almost without exception they and their colleagues have
+either lived in the Congo, or have been guided in their fortunes by it.
+
+You have now had the historical approach with all personal side-lights
+to the hour when America actually invaded the Congo. As soon as Leopold
+and Ryan finally got together the king said, "The Congo must have
+American engineers. They are the best in the world." Thus it came about
+that Central Africa, like South Africa, came under the galvanizing hand
+of the Yankee technical expert. At Kimberley and Johannesburg, however,
+the task was comparatively easy. The mines were accessible and the
+country was known. With Central Africa it was a different and more
+dangerous matter. The land was wild, hostile natives abounded on all
+sides, and going in was like firing a shot in the dark.
+
+The American invasion was in two sections. One was the group of
+engineers headed by Sydney H. Ball and R. D. L. Mohun, known as the
+Ball-Mohun Expedition, which conducted the geological investigation. The
+other was in charge of S. P. Verner, an American who had done
+considerable pioneering in the Congo, and devoted itself entirely to
+rubber. The latter venture was under the auspices of the American Congo
+Company, which expected to employ the Mexican process in the Congo.
+After several years the attempt was abandoned although the company still
+exists.
+
+I will briefly narrate its experience to show that the product which
+raised the tempest around King Leopold's head and which for years was
+synonymous with the name of the Congo, has practically ceased to be an
+important commercial commodity in the Colony. The reason is obvious. In
+Leopold's day nine-tenths of the world's supply of rubber was wild and
+came from Brazil and the Congo. It cost about fifty cents a pound to
+gather and sold for a dollar. Today more than ninety per cent of the
+rubber supply is grown on plantations in the Dutch East Indies, the
+Malay States, and the Straits Settlements, where it costs about twenty
+cents a pound to gather and despite the big slump in price since the
+war, is profitable. In the Congo there is still wild rubber and a
+movement is under way to develop large plantations. Labor is scarce,
+however, while in the East millions of coolies are available. This tells
+the whole rubber story.
+
+The Ball-Mohun Expedition was more successful than its mate for it
+opened up a mineral empire and laid the foundations of the Little
+America that you shall soon see. Mohun was administrative head and Ball
+the technical head and chief engineer. Other members were Millard K.
+Shaler, afterwards one of Hoover's most efficient aids in the relief of
+Belgium, and Arthur F. Smith, geologists; Roland B. Oliver, topographer;
+A. E. H. and C. A. Reid, and N. Janot, prospectors.
+
+Mohun, who had been engaged on account of his knowledge of the country,
+had been American Consul at Zanzibar and at Boma, and first left
+diplomacy to fight the Arab slave-traders in the interior. When someone
+asked him why he had quit the United States Government service to go on
+a military mission he said, "I prefer killing Arabs in the interior to
+killing time at Boma." He figured as one of Richard Harding Davis'
+"Soldiers of Fortune" and was in every sense a unique personality.
+
+You get some idea of the hazards that confronted the American pioneers
+when I say that when they set forth for the Kasai region, which is the
+southwestern part of the Congo, late in 1907, they were accompanied by a
+battalion of native troops under Belgian officers. Often they had to
+fight their way before they could take specimens. On one occasion Ball
+was prospecting in a region hitherto uninvaded by the white man. He was
+attacked by a large body of hostile savages and a pitched battle
+followed. In informal Congo history this engagement is known as "The
+Battle of Ball's Run," although Ball did no running. As recently as 1915
+one of the Forminiere prospectors, E. G. Decker, was killed by the
+fierce Batshoks, the most belligerent of the Upper Kasai tribes. The
+Ball-Mohun group, which was the first of many expeditions, remained in
+the field more than two years and covered a wide area.
+
+Up to this time gold and copper were the only valuable minerals that had
+been discovered in the Congo and the Americans naturally went after
+them. Much to their surprise, they found diamonds and thereby opened up
+a fresh source of wealth for the Colony. The first diamond was found at
+_Mai Munene_, which means "Big Water," a considerable waterfall
+discovered by Livingstone. This region, which is watered by the Kasai
+River, became the center of what is now known as the Congo Diamond
+Fields and remains the stronghold of American engineering and financial
+enterprise in Central Africa. On a wooded height not far from the
+headwaters of the Kasai, these path-finding Americans established a post
+called Tshikapa, the name of a small river nearby. It is the capital of
+Little America in the jungle and therefore became the objective of the
+second stage of my Congo journey.
+
+[Illustration: A BELLE OF THE CONGO]
+
+[Illustration: WOMEN OF THE BATETELAS]
+
+
+III
+
+Kinshassa is nearly a thousand miles from Tshikapa. To get there I had
+to retrace my way up the Congo as far as Kwamouth, where the Kasai
+empties into the parent stream. I also found that it was necessary to
+change boats at Dima and continue on the Kasai to Djoko Punda. Here
+begins the jungle road to the diamond fields.
+
+Up to this time I had enjoyed the best facilities that the Congo could
+supply in the way of transport. Now I faced a trip that would not only
+try patience but had every element of the unknown, which in the Congo
+means the uncomfortable. Fortunately, the "Lusanga," one of the
+Huileries du Congo Belge steamers, was about to start for the Kwilu
+River, which branches off from the Kasai, and the company was kind
+enough to order it to take me to Dima, which was off the prescribed
+itinerary of the vessel.
+
+On a brilliant morning at the end of June I set forth. Nelson was still
+my faithful servant and his smile and teeth shone as resplendently as
+ever. The only change in him was that his appetite for _chikwanga_ had
+visibly increased. Somebody had told him at Kinshassa that the Kasai
+country teemed with cannibals. Being one of the world's champion eaters,
+he shrank from being eaten himself. I promised him an extra allowance of
+food and a khaki uniform that I had worn in the war, and he agreed to
+take a chance.
+
+Right here let me give an evidence of the Congo native's astounding
+quickness to grasp things. I do not refer to his light-fingered
+propensities, however. When we got to Kinshassa Nelson knew scarcely a
+word of the local dialect. When we left a week later, he could jabber
+intelligently with any savage he met. On the four weeks' trip from
+Elizabethville he had picked up enough French to make himself
+understood. The Central African native has an aptitude for languages
+that far surpasses that of the average white man.
+
+I was the only passenger on the "Lusanga," which had been reconstructed
+for Lord Leverhulme's trip through the Congo in 1914. I occupied the
+suite installed for him and it was my last taste of luxury for many a
+day. The captain, Albert Carrie, was a retired lieutenant in the British
+Royal Navy, and the chief engineer was a Scotchman. The Congo River
+seemed like an old friend as we steamed up toward Kwamouth. As soon as
+we turned into the Kasai I found that conditions were different than on
+the main river. There was an abundance of fuel, both for man and boat.
+The daily goat steak of the Congo was relieved by duck and fish. The
+Kasai region is thickly populated and I saw a new type of native,
+lighter in colour than elsewhere, and more keen and intelligent.
+
+The women of the Kasai are probably the most attractive in the Congo.
+This applies particularly to the Batetelas, who are of light brown
+colour. From childhood the females of this tribe have a sense of modesty
+that is in sharp contrast with the nudity that prevails elsewhere
+throughout the country. They swathe their bodies from neck to ankle with
+gaily coloured calico. I am often asked if the scant attire in Central
+Africa shocked me. I invariably reply by saying that the contemporary
+feminine fashion of near-undress in America and Europe made me feel
+that some of the chocolate-hued ladies of the jungle were almost
+over-clothed!
+
+The fourth day of my trip was also the American Fourth of July. Captain
+Carrie and I celebrated by toasting the British and American Navies, and
+it was not in Kasai water. This day also witnessed a somewhat remarkable
+revelation of the fact that world economic unrest has penetrated to the
+very heart of the primitive regions. While the wood-boys were getting
+fuel at a native post, Carrie and I went ashore to take a walk and visit
+a chief who had once been in Belgium. When we got back to the boat we
+found that all the natives had suspended work and were listening to an
+impassioned speech by one of the black wheelmen. All these boats have
+native pilots. This boy, who only wore a loin cloth, was urging his
+fellows not to work so hard. Among other things he said:
+
+"The white man eats big food and takes a big sleep in the middle of the
+day and you ought to do the same thing. The company that owns this boat
+has much money and you should all be getting more wages."
+
+Carrie stopped the harangue, fined the pilot a week's pay, and the men
+went back to work, but the poison had been planted. This illuminating
+episode is just one of the many evidences of industrial insurgency that
+I found in Africa from the moment I struck Capetown. In the Rand gold
+mining district, for example, the natives have been organized by British
+agitators and it probably will not be long before Central Africa has the
+I. W. W. in its midst! Certainly the "I Won't Works" already exist in
+large numbers.
+
+This essentially modern spirit was only one of the many surprises that
+the Congo native disclosed. Another was the existence of powerful secret
+societies which have codes, "grips," and pass-words. Some antedate the
+white man, indulge in human sacrifice, and have branches in a dozen
+sections. Although Central Africa is a land where the husband can stray
+from home at will, the "lodge night" is thus available as an excuse for
+domestic indiscretion.
+
+The most terrible of these orders is the Society of the Leopard, formed
+to provide a novel and devilish method of disposing of enemies. The
+members wear leopard skins or spotted habits and throttle their foes
+with a glove to which steel blades are affixed. The victim appears to
+have been killed by the animal that cannot change its spots. To make the
+illusion complete, the ground where the victim has lain is marked with a
+stick whose end resembles the feet of the leopard.
+
+The leopard skin has a curious significance in the Congo. For occasions
+where the white man takes an oath on the Bible, the savage steps over
+one of these skins to swear fealty. If two chiefs have had a quarrel and
+make up, they tear a skin in two and throw the pieces into the river, to
+show that the feud is rent asunder. It corresponds to the pipe of peace
+of the American Indian.
+
+Another secret society in the Congo is the Lubuki, whose initiation
+makes riding the goat seem like a childish amusement. The candidate is
+tied to a tree and a nest of black ants is distributed over his body. He
+is released only after he is nearly stung to death. A repetition of this
+jungle third degree is threatened for violation of any of the secrets of
+the order, the main purpose of which is to graft on non-members for food
+and other necessities.
+
+In civilized life the members of a fraternal society are summoned to a
+meeting by telephone or letter. In the Congo they are haled by the
+tom-tom, which is the wireless of the woods. These huge drums have an
+uncanny carrying power. The beats are like the dots and dashes of
+telegraphy. All the native news of Central Africa is transmitted from
+village to village in this way.
+
+I could continue this narrative of native habits and customs
+indefinitely but we must get back to the "Lusanga." On board was a real
+character. He was Peter the capita. In the Congo every group of native
+workmen is in charge of a capita, who would be designated a foreman in
+this country. Life and varied experience had battered Peter sadly. He
+spoke English, French, German, Portuguese, and half a dozen of the Congo
+dialects. He learned German while a member of an African dancing team
+that performed at the Winter Garden in Berlin. His German almost had a
+Potsdam flavour. He told me that he had danced before the former Kaiser
+and had met many members of the Teutonic nobility. Yet the thing that
+stood out most vividly in his memory was the taste of German beer. He
+sighed for it daily.
+
+Six days after leaving Kinshassa I reluctantly bade farewell to Peter
+and the "Lusanga" at Dima. Here I had the first piece of hard luck on
+the whole trip. The little steamer that was to take me up the Kasai
+River to Djoko Punda had departed five days before and I was forced to
+wait until she returned. Fifteen years ago Dima was the wildest kind of
+jungle. I found it a model, tropical post with dozens of brick houses, a
+shipyard and machine shops, avenues of palm trees and a farm. It is the
+headquarters of the Kasai Company in the Congo.
+
+I had a brick bungalow to myself and ate with the Managing Director,
+Monsieur Adrian Van den Hove. He knew no English and my alleged French
+was pretty bad. Yet we met three times a day at the table and carried
+on spirited conversations. There was only one English-speaking person
+within a radius of a hundred miles and I had read all my English books.
+I vented my impatience in walking, for I covered at least fifteen miles
+through the jungle every day. This proceeding filled both the Belgians
+and the natives with astonishment. The latter particularly could not
+understand why a man walked about the country aimlessly. Usually a
+native will only walk when he can move in the direction of food or
+sleep. On these solitary trips I went through a country that still
+abounds in buffalo. Occasionally you see an elephant. It is one thing to
+watch a big tusker doing his tricks in a circus tent, but quite another
+to hear him floundering through the woods, tearing off huge branches of
+trees as he moves along with what seems to be an incredible speed for so
+heavy an animal.
+
+There came the glad Sunday--it was my thirteenth day at Dima--when I
+heard the whistle of the steamboat. I dashed down to the beach and there
+was the little forty-ton "Madeleine." I welcomed her as a long-lost
+friend and this she proved to be. The second day afterwards I went
+aboard and began a diverting chapter of my experience. The "Madeleine"
+is a type of the veteran Congo boat. In the old days the Belgian
+pioneers fought natives from its narrow deck. Despite incessant combat
+with sand-banks, snags and swift currents--all these obstructions abound
+in the Kasai River--she was still staunch. In command was the only
+Belgian captain that I had in the Congo, and he had been on these waters
+for twenty years with only one holiday in Europe during the entire time.
+
+I occupied the alleged cabin-de-luxe, the large room that all these
+boats must furnish in case an important State functionary wants to
+travel. My fellow passengers were two Catholic priests and three Belgian
+"agents," as the Congo factors are styled. I ate alone on the main deck
+in front of my cabin, with Nelson in attendance.
+
+Now began a journey that did not lack adventure. It was the end of the
+dry season and the Kasai was lower than ever before. The channel was
+almost a continuous sand-bank. We rested on one of them for a whole day.
+I was now well into the domain of the hippopotamus. I am not
+exaggerating when I say that the Kasai in places is alive with them. You
+can shoot one of these monsters from the bridge of the river boats
+almost as easily as you could pick off a sparrow from the limb of a park
+tree. I got tired of watching them. The flesh of the hippopotamus is
+unfit for white consumption, but the natives regard it as a luxury. The
+white man who kills a hippo is immediately acclaimed a hero. One reason
+is that with spears the black finds it difficult to get the better of
+one of these animals.
+
+Our first step was at a Lutheran Mission set in the middle of a populous
+village. As we approached I saw the American flag hanging over the door
+of the most pretentious mud and grass house. When I went ashore I found
+that the missionaries--a man and his wife--were both American citizens.
+The husband was a Swede who had gone out to Kansas in his boyhood to
+work on a farm. There he married a Kansas girl, who now speaks English
+with a Swedish accent. After spreading the gospel in China and
+elsewhere, they settled down in this lonely spot on the Kasai River.
+
+I was immediately impressed with the difference between the Congo River
+and the Kasai. The Congo is serene, brooding, majestic, and fringed
+with an endless verdure. The Kasai, although 1,500 miles in length, is
+narrower and more pugnacious. Its brown banks and grim flanking
+mountains offer a welcome change from the eternal green of the great
+river that gives the Colony its name. The Kasai was discovered by
+Livingstone in 1854.
+
+I also got another change. Two days after I left Dima we were blanketed
+with heavy fog every morning and the air was raw and chill. On the Kasai
+you can have every experience of trans-Atlantic travel with the sole
+exception of seasickness.
+
+As I proceeded up the Kasai I found continued evidence of the advance in
+price of every food commodity. The omnipresent chicken that fetched a
+franc in 1914 now brings from five to ten. My old friend the goat has
+risen from ten to thirty francs and he was as tough as ever, despite the
+rise. But foodstuffs are only a small part of these Congo economic
+troubles.
+
+We have suffered for some time under the burden of our inseparable
+companion, the High Cost of Living. It is slight compared with the High
+Cost of Loving in the Congo. Here you touch a real hardship. Before the
+war a first-class wife--all wives are bought--sold for fifty francs.
+Today the market price for a choice spouse is two hundred francs and it
+takes hard digging for the black man to scrape up this almost
+prohibitive fee. Thus the High Cost of Matrimony enters the list of
+universal distractions.
+
+On the "Madeleine" was a fascinating black child named Nanda. He was
+about five years old and strolled about the boat absolutely naked. Most
+Congo parents are fond of their offspring but this particular youngster,
+who was bright and alert, was adored by his father, the head fireman
+on the vessel. One day I gave him a cake and it was the first piece of
+sweet bread he had ever eaten. Evidently he liked it for afterwards he
+approached me every hour with his little hands outstretched. I was
+anxious to get a photograph of him in his natural state and took him
+ashore ostensibly for a walk. One of my fellow passengers had a camera
+and I asked him to come along. When the boy saw that he was about to be
+snapped he rushed back to the boat yelling and howling. I did not know
+what was the matter until he returned in about ten minutes, wearing an
+abbreviated pair of pants and a short coat. He was willing to walk about
+nude but when it came to being pictured he suddenly became modest. This
+state of mind, however, is not general in the Colony.
+
+[Illustration: FISHERMEN ON THE SANKURU]
+
+[Illustration: THE FALLS OF THE SANKURU]
+
+The African child is fond of playthings which shows that one touch of
+amusement makes all childhood kin. He will swim half a mile through a
+crocodile-infested river to get an empty tin can or a bottle. One of the
+favorite sports on the river boats is to throw boxes or bottles into the
+water and then watch the children race for them. On the Congo the
+fathers sometimes manufacture rude reproductions of steamboats for their
+children and some of them are astonishingly well made.
+
+Exactly twelve days after we left Dima the captain told me that we were
+nearing Djoko Punda. The country was mountainous and the river had
+become swifter and deeper for we were approaching Wissmann Falls, the
+end of navigation for some distance. These falls are named for Herman
+Wissmann, a lieutenant in the Prussian Army who in the opinion of such
+authorities as Sir Harry Johnston, ranks third in the hierarchy of early
+Congo explorers. Stanley, of course, comes first and Grenfell second.
+
+On account of the lack of certain communication save by runner in this
+part of Africa--the traveller can always beat a wireless message--I was
+unable to send any word of my coming and I wondered whom and what I
+would find there. I had the strongest possible letters to all the
+Forminiere officials but these pieces of paper could not get me on to
+Tshikapa. I needed something that moved on wheels. I was greatly
+relieved, therefore, when we came in sight of the post to see two
+unmistakable American figures standing on the bank. What cheered me
+further were two American motor cars nearby.
+
+The two Americans proved to be G. D. Moody and J. E. Robison. The former
+is Assistant Chief Engineer of the Forminiere in the field and the
+latter is in charge of the motor transport. They gave me a genuine
+American welcome and that night I dined in Robison's grass house off
+American food that had travelled nearly fifteen thousand miles. I heard
+the first unadulterated Yankee conversation that had fallen on my ears
+since I left Elizabethville two months before. When I said that I wanted
+to push on to Tshikapa at once, Moody said, "We will leave at five in
+the morning in one of the jitneys and be in Tshikapa tomorrow night."
+Moody was an incorrigible optimist as I was soon to discover.
+
+
+IV
+
+At dawn the next morning and after a breakfast of hot cakes we set out.
+Nelson was in a great state of excitement because he had never ridden in
+an automobile before. He was destined not to enjoy that rare privilege
+very long. The rough highway hewed by American engineers through the
+thick woods was a foot deep in sand and before we had proceeded a
+hundred yards the car got stuck and all hands save Moody got out to push
+it on. Moody was the chauffeur and had to remain at the wheel. Draped in
+fog, the jungle about me had an almost eerie look. But aesthetic and
+emotional observations had to give way to practicality. Laboriously the
+jitney snorted through the sand and bumped over tree stumps. After a
+strenuous hour and when we had reached the open country, the machine
+gave a groan and died on the spot. We were on a broad plain on the
+outskirts of a village and the broiling sun beat down on us.
+
+The African picaninny has just as much curiosity as his American brother
+and in ten minutes the whole juvenile population was assembled around
+us. Soon the grown-ups joined the crowd. Naked women examined the tires
+as if they were articles of food and black warriors stalked about with
+the same sort of "I told you so" expression that you find in the face of
+the average American watching a motor car breakdown. Human nature is the
+same the world over. The automobile is a novelty in these parts and when
+the Forminiere employed the first ones the natives actually thought it
+was an animal that would finally get tired and quit. Mine stopped
+without getting tired!
+
+For six hours Moody laboured under the car while I sat in the glaring
+sun alongside the road and cursed fate. Nelson spent his time eating all
+the available food in sight. Finally, at three o'clock Moody gave up and
+said, "We'll have to make the rest of this trip in a teapoy."
+
+A teapoy is usually a hammock slung on a pole carried on the shoulders
+of natives. We sent a runner in to Robison, who came back with two
+teapoys and a squad of forty blacks to transport us. The "teapoy boy,"
+as he is called, is as much a part of the African scheme of life as a
+driver or a chauffeur is in America. He must be big, strong, and sound
+of wind, because he is required to go at a run all the time. For any
+considerable journey each teapoy has a squad of eight men who alternate
+on the run without losing a step. They always sing as they go.
+
+I had never ridden in a teapoy before and now I began a continuous trip
+in one which lasted eight hours. Night fell almost before we got started
+and it was a strange sensation to go sailing through the silent black
+woods and the excited villages where thousands of naked persons of all
+sizes turned out to see the show. After two hours I began to feel as if
+I had been tossed up for a week in an army blanket. The wrist watch that
+I had worn throughout the war and which had withstood the fiercest shell
+shocks and bombardments, was jolted to a standstill. After the fourth
+hour I became accustomed to the movement and even went to sleep for a
+while. Midnight brought us to Kabambaie and the banks of the Kasai,
+where I found food and sanctuary at a Forminiere post. Here the
+thousands of tons of freight that come up the river from Dima by
+steamer and which are carried by motor trucks, ox teams, and on the
+heads of natives to this point, are placed on whale-boats and sent up
+the river to Tshikapa.
+
+Before going to bed I sent a runner to Tshikapa to notify Donald Doyle,
+Managing Engineer of the Forminiere in the field, that I was coming and
+to send a motor car out to meet me. I promised this runner much
+_matabeesh_, which is the African word for a tip, if he would run the
+whole way. The distance through the jungle was exactly seventy-two miles
+and he covered it, as I discovered when I reached Tshikapa, in exactly
+twenty-six hours, a remarkable feat. The _matabeesh_ I bestowed, by the
+way, was three francs (about eighteen cents) and the native regarded it
+as a princely gift because it amounted to nearly half a month's wages.
+
+By this time my confidence in the African jitney was somewhat shaken. A
+new motor-boat had just been received at Kabambaie and I thought I would
+take a chance with it and start up the Kasai the next day. Moody,
+assisted by several other engineers, set to work to get it in shape. At
+noon of the second day, when we were about to start, the engine went on
+a sympathetic strike with the jitney, and once more I was halted. I said
+to Moody, "I am going to Tshikapa without any further delay if I have to
+walk the whole way." This was not necessary for, thanks to the
+Forminiere organization, which always has hundreds of native porters at
+Kabambaie, I was able to organize a caravan in a few hours.
+
+After lunch we departed with a complete outfit of tents, bedding, and
+servants. The black personnel was thirty porters and a picked squad of
+thirty-five teapoy boys to carry Moody and myself. Usually these
+caravans have a flag. I had none so the teapoy capita fished out a big
+red bandanna handkerchief, which he tied to a stick. With the crimson
+banner flying and the teapoy carriers singing and playing rude native
+instruments, we started off at a trot. I felt like an explorer going
+into the unknown places. It was the real thing in jungle experience.
+
+From two o'clock until sunset we trotted through the wilds, which were
+almost thrillingly beautiful. In Africa there is no twilight, and
+darkness swoops down like a hawk. All afternoon the teapoy men, after
+their fashion, carried on what was literally a running crossfire of
+questions among themselves. They usually boast of their strength and
+their families and always discuss the white man they are carrying and
+his characteristics. I heard much muttering of _Mafutta Mingi_ and I
+knew long before we stopped that my weight was not a pleasant topic.
+
+I will try to reproduce some of the conversation that went on that
+afternoon between my carriers. I will not give the native words but will
+translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled
+back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there
+is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always
+expressed by a grunt. Here is the conversation:
+
+"Men of the white men."
+
+"Ugh."
+
+"Does he lie?"
+
+"He lies not."
+
+"Does he shirk?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Does he steal?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Am I strong?"
+
+"Ugh."
+
+"Have I a good liver?"
+
+"Ugh."
+
+[Illustration: A CONGO DIAMOND MINE]
+
+[Illustration: HOW THE MINES ARE WORKED]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So it goes. One reason why these men talk so much is that all their work
+must be accompanied by some sound. Up in the diamond fields I watched a
+native chopping wood. Every time the steel blade buried itself in the
+log the man said: "Good axe. Cut deep." He talked to the weapon just as
+he would speak to a human being. It all goes to show that the Congo
+native is simply a child grown to man's stature.
+
+The fact that I had to resort to the teapoy illustrates the
+unreliability of mechanical transport in the wilds. I had tried in vain
+to make progress with an automobile and a motor boat, and was forced as
+a last resort to get back to the human being as carrier. He remains the
+unfailing beast of burden despite all scientific progress.
+
+I slept that night in a native house on the outskirts of a village. It
+was what is called a _chitenda_, which is a grass structure open at all
+the sides. The last white man to occupy this domicile was Louis Franck,
+the Belgian Minister of the Colonies, who had gone up to the Forminiere
+diamond fields a few weeks before. He used the same jitney that I had
+started in, and it also broke down with him. Moody was his chauffeur.
+They made their way on foot to this village. Moody told the chief that
+he had the real _Bula Matadi_ with him. The chief solemnly looked at
+Franck and said, "He is no _Bula Matadi_ because he does not wear any
+medals." Most high Belgian officials wear orders and the native dotes on
+shiny ornaments. The old savage refused to sell the travellers any food
+and the Minister had to share the beans of the negro boys who
+accompanied him.
+
+Daybreak saw us on the move. For hours we swung through dense forest
+which made one think of the beginnings of the world when the big trees
+were king. The vastness and silence were only comparable to the brooding
+mystery of the jungle nights. You have no feel of fear but oddly enough,
+a strange sense of security.
+
+I realized as never before, the truth that lay behind one of Stanley's
+convictions. He once said, "No luxury of civilization can be equal to
+the relief from the tyranny of custom. The wilds of a great city are
+greater than the excruciating tyranny of a small village. The heart of
+Africa is infinitely preferable to the heart of the world's largest
+city. If the way were easier, millions would fly to it."
+
+Despite this enthralling environment I kept wondering if that runner had
+reached Doyle and if a car had been sent out. At noon we emerged from
+the forest into a clearing. Suddenly Moody said, "I hear an automobile
+engine." A moment later I saw a small car burst through the trees far
+ahead and I knew that relief was at hand. Dr. John Dunn, the physician
+at Tshikapa, had started at dawn to meet me, and my teapoy adventures,
+for the moment, were ended. Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji had no keener
+feeling of relief at the sight of Stanley that I felt when I shook the
+hand of this bronzed, Middle Western medico.
+
+We lunched by the roadside and afterwards I got into Dunn's car and
+resumed the journey. I sent the porters and teapoy men back to
+Kabambaie. Late in the afternoon we reached the bluffs overlooking the
+Upper Kasai. Across the broad, foaming river was Tshikapa. If I had not
+known that it was an American settlement, I would have sensed its
+sponsorship. It radiated order and neatness. The only parallels in the
+Congo are the various areas of the Huileries du Congo Belge.
+
+
+V
+
+Tshikapa, which means "belt," is a Little America in every sense. It
+commands the junction of the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. There are dozens
+of substantial brick dwellings, offices, warehouses, machine-shops and a
+hospital. For a hundred miles to the Angola border and far beyond, the
+Yankee has cut motor roads and set up civilization generally. You see
+American thoroughness on all sides, even in the immense native villages
+where the mine employees live. Instead of having compounds the company
+encourages the blacks to establish their own settlements and live their
+own lives. It makes them more contented and therefore more efficient,
+and it establishes a colony of permanent workers. When the native is
+confined to a compound he gets restless and wants to go back home. The
+Americans are helping to solve the Congo labour problem.
+
+At Tshikapa you hear good old United States spoken with every dialectic
+flavour from New England hardness to Texas drawl. In charge of all the
+operations in the field was Doyle, a clear-cut, upstanding American
+engineer who had served his apprenticeship in the Angola jungles, where
+he was a member of one of the first American prospecting parties. With
+his wife he lived in a large brick bungalow and I was their guest in it
+during my entire stay in the diamond fields. Mrs. Doyle embodied the
+same courage that animated Mrs. Wallace. Too much cannot be said of the
+faith and fortitude of these women who share their husband's fortunes
+out at the frontiers of civilization.
+
+At Tshikapa there were other white women, including Mrs. Dunn, who had
+recently converted her hospitable home into a small maternity hospital.
+Only a few weeks before my arrival Mrs. Edwin Barclay, wife of the
+manager of the Mabonda Mine, had given birth to a girl baby under its
+roof, and I was taken over at once to see the latest addition to the
+American colony.
+
+On the day of my arrival the natives employed at this mine had sent Mrs.
+Barclay a gift of fifty newly-laid eggs as a present for the baby.
+Accompanying it was a rude note scrawled by one of the foremen who had
+attended a Presbyterian mission school. The birth of a white baby is
+always a great event in the Congo. When Mrs. Barclay returned to her
+home a grand celebration was held and the natives feasted and danced in
+honour of the infant.
+
+There is a delightful social life at Tshikapa. Most of the mines, which
+are mainly in charge of American engineers, are within a day's
+travelling distance in a teapoy and much nearer by automobile. Some of
+the managers have their families with them, and they foregather at the
+main post every Sunday. On Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and
+Christmas there is always a big rally which includes a dance and
+vaudeville show in the men's mess hall. The Stars and Stripes are
+unfurled to the African breeze and the old days in the States recalled.
+It is real community life on the fringe of the jungle.
+
+I was struck with the big difference between the Congo diamond fields
+and those at Kimberley. In South Africa the mines are gaping gashes in
+the earth thousands of feet wide and thousands deep. They are all
+"pipes" which are formed by volcanic eruption. These pipes are the real
+source of the diamonds. The precious blue ground which contains the
+stones is spread out on immense "floors" to decompose under sun and
+rain. Afterwards it is broken in crushers and goes through a series of
+mechanical transformations. The diamonds are separated from the
+concentrates on a pulsating table covered with vaseline. The gems cling
+to the oleaginous substance. It is an elaborate process.
+
+The Congo mines are alluvial and every creek and river bed is therefore
+a potential diamond mine. The only labour necessary is to remove the
+upper layer of earth,--the "overburden" as it is termed--dig up the
+gravel, shake it out, and you have the concentrate from which a naked
+savage can pick the precious stones. They are precisely like the mines
+of German South-West Africa. So far no "pipes" have been discovered in
+the Kasai basin. Many indications have been found, and it is inevitable
+that they will be located in time. The diamond-bearing earth sometimes
+travels very far from its base, and the American engineers in the Congo
+with whom I talked are convinced that these volcanic formations which
+usually produce large stones, lie far up in the Kasai hills. The
+diamond-bearing area of the Belgian Congo and Angola covers nearly eight
+thousand square miles and only five per cent has been prospected. There
+is not the slightest doubt that one of the greatest diamond fields ever
+known is in the making here.
+
+Now for a real human interest detail. At Kimberley the Zulus and Kaffirs
+know the value of the diamond and there was formerly considerable
+filching. All the workers are segregated in barbed wire compounds and
+kept under constant surveillance. At the end of their period of
+service they remain in custody for two weeks in order to make certain
+that they have not swallowed any stones.
+
+[Illustration: GRAVEL CARRIERS AT A CONGO MINE]
+
+[Illustration: CONGO NATIVES PICKING OUT DIAMONDS]
+
+The Congo natives do not know what a diamond really is. The majority
+believe that it is simply a piece of glass employed in the making of
+bottles, and there are a good many bottles of various kinds in the
+Colony. Hence no watch is kept on the hundreds of Balubas who are mainly
+employed in the task of picking out the glittering jewels. During the
+past five years, when the product in the Congo fields has grown
+steadily, not a single karat has been stolen. The same situation obtains
+in the Angola fields.
+
+In company with Doyle I visited the eight principal mines in the Congo
+field and saw the process of mining in all its stages of advancement. At
+the Kisele development, which is almost within sight of Tshikapa, the
+small "jigs" in which the gravel is shaken, are operated by hand. This
+is the most primitive method. At Mabonda the concentrate pans are
+mounted on high platforms. Here the turning is also by hand but on a
+larger scale. The Ramona mine has steam-driven pans, while at Tshisundu,
+which is in charge of William McMillan, I witnessed the last word in
+alluvial diamond mining. At this place Forminiere has erected an
+imposing power plant whose tall smokestack dominates the surrounding
+forest. You get a suggestion of Kimberley for the excavation is immense,
+and there is the hum and movement of a pretentious industrial
+enterprise. Under the direction of William McMillan a research
+department has been established which is expected to influence and
+possibly change alluvial operations.
+
+Our luncheon at Tshisundu was attended by Mrs. McMillan, another
+heroine of that rugged land. Alongside sat her son, born in 1918 at one
+of the mines in the field and who was as lusty and animated a youngster
+as I have seen. His every movement was followed by the eagle eye of his
+native nurse who was about twelve years old. These native attendants
+regard it as a special privilege to act as custodians of a white child
+and invariably a close intimacy is established between them. They really
+become playmates.
+
+It is difficult to imagine that these Congo diamond mines were mere
+patches of jungle a few years ago. The task of exploitation has been an
+immense one. Before the simplest mine can be operated the dense forest
+must be cleared and the river beds drained. Every day the mine manager
+is confronted with some problem which tests his ingenuity and resource.
+Only the Anglo-Saxon could hold his own amid these trying circumstances.
+
+No less difficult were the natives themselves. Before the advent of the
+American engineers, industry was unknown in the Upper Kasai. The only
+organized activity was the harvesting of rubber and that was rather a
+haphazard performance. With the opening of the mines thousands of
+untrained blacks had to be drawn into organized service. They had never
+even seen the implements of labour employed by the whites. When they
+were given wheel-barrows and told to fill and transport the earth, they
+placed the barrows on their heads and carried them to the designated
+place. They repeated the same act with shovels.
+
+The Yankees have thoroughly impressed the value and the nobility of
+labour. I asked one of the employes at a diamond mine what he thought of
+the Americans. His reply was, "Americans and work were born on the same
+day."
+
+The labour of opening up the virgin land was only one phase. Every piece
+of machinery and every tin of food had to be transported thousands of
+miles and this condition still obtains. The motor road from Djoko Punda
+to Kabambaie was hacked by American engineers through the jungle. It is
+comparatively easy to get supplies to Djoko Punda although everything
+must be shifted from railway to boat several times. Between Djoko Punda
+and Tshikapa the material is hauled in motor trucks and ox-drawn wagons
+or conveyed on the heads of porters to Kabambaie. Some of it is
+transshipped to whale-boats and paddled up to Tshikapa, and the
+remainder continues in the wagons overland. During 1920 seven hundred
+and fifty tons of freight were hauled from Djoko Punda in this laborious
+way.
+
+At the time of my visit there were twelve going mines in the Congo
+field, and three new ones were in various stages of advancement. The
+Forminiere engineers also operate the diamond concessions of the Kasai
+Company and the Bas Congo Katanga Railway which will run from the
+Katanga to Kinshassa.
+
+More than twelve thousand natives are employed throughout the Congo area
+alone and nowhere have I seen a more contented lot of blacks. The
+Forminiere obtains this good-will by wisely keeping the price of trade
+goods such as salt and calico at the pre-war rate. It is an admirable
+investment. This merchandise is practically the legal tender of the
+jungle. With a cup of salt a black man can start an endless chain of
+trading that will net him a considerable assortment of articles in time.
+
+The principal natives in the Upper Kasai are the Balubas, who bear the
+same relation to this area as the Bangalas do to the Upper Congo. The
+men are big, strong, and fairly intelligent. The principal tribal mark
+is the absence of the two upper central incisor teeth. These are usually
+knocked out in early boyhood. No Baluba can marry until he can show this
+gaping space in his mouth. Although the natives abuse their teeth by
+removing them or filing them down to points, they take excellent care of
+the remaining ivories. Many polish the teeth with a stick and wash their
+mouths several times a day. The same cannot be said of many civilized
+persons.
+
+I observed that the families in the Upper Kasai were much more numerous
+than elsewhere in the Congo. A Bangala or Batetela woman usually has one
+child and then goes out of the baby business. In the region dominated by
+the Forminiere it is no infrequent thing to see three or four children
+in a household. A woman who bears twins is not only hailed as a real
+benefactress but the village looks upon the occasion as a good omen.
+This is in direct contrast with the state of mind in East Africa, for
+example, where one twin is invariably killed.
+
+I encountered an interesting situation concerning twins when I visited
+the Mabonda Mine. This is one of the largest in the Congo field.
+Barclay, the big-boned American manager, formerly conducted engineering
+operations in the southern part of America. He therefore knows the Negro
+psychology and the result is that he conducts a sort of amiable and
+paternalistic little kingdom all his own. The natives all come to him
+with their troubles, and he is their friend, philosopher and guide.
+
+After lunch one day he asked me if I would like to talk to a native who
+had a story. When I expressed assent he took me out to a shed nearby and
+there I saw a husky Baluba who was labouring under some excitement. The
+reason was droll. Four days before, his wife had given birth to twins
+and there was great excitement in the village. The natives, however,
+refused to have anything to do with him because, to use their phrase,
+"he was too strong." His wife did not come under this ban and was the
+center of jubilation and gesticulation. The poor husband was a sort of
+heroic outcast and had to come to Barclay to get some food and a drink
+of palm wine to revive his drooping spirits.
+
+The output in the Congo diamond area has grown from a few thousand
+karats to hundreds of thousands of karats a year. The stones are small
+but clear and brilliant. This yield is an unsatisfactory evidence of the
+richness of the domain. The ore reserves are more than ten per cent of
+the yearly output and the surface of the concession has scarcely been
+scratched. Experienced diamond men say that a diamond in the ground is
+worth two in the market. It is this element of the unknown that gives
+the Congo field one of its principal potentialities.
+
+The Congo diamond fields are merely a part of the Forminiere
+treasure-trove. Over in Angola the concession is eight times larger in
+area, the stones are bigger, and with adequate exploitation should
+surpass the parent production in a few years. Six mines are already in
+operation and three more have been staked out. The Angola mines are
+alluvial and are operated precisely like those in Belgian territory. The
+managing engineer is Glenn H. Newport, who was with Decker in the fatal
+encounter with Batchoks. The principal post of this area is Dundu, which
+is about forty miles from the Congo border.
+
+As I looked at these mines with their thousands of grinning natives and
+heard the rattle of gravel in the "jigs" my mind went back to Kimberley
+and the immense part that its glittering wealth played in determining
+the economic fate of South Africa. Long before the gold "rush" opened up
+in the Rand, the diamond mines had given the southern section of the
+continent a rebirth of prosperity. Will the Congo mines perform the same
+service for the Congo? In any event they will be a determining factor in
+the future world diamond output.
+
+No record of America in the Congo would be complete without a reference
+to the high part that our missionaries have played in the
+spiritualization of the land. The stronghold of our religious influence
+is also the Upper Kasai Basin. In 1890 two devoted men, Samuel N.
+Lapsley, a white clergyman, and William H. Sheppard, a Negro from
+Alabama, established the American Presbyterian Congo Mission at Luebo
+which is about one hundred miles from Tshikapa straight across country.
+
+The valley of the Sankuru and Kasai Rivers is one of the most densely
+populated of all the Belgian Congo. It is inhabited by five powerful
+tribes--the Baluba, the Bena Lulua, the Bakuba, the Bakete and the
+Zappozaps, and their united population is one-fifth of that of the whole
+Colony. Hence it was a fruitful field for labour but a hard one. From an
+humble beginning the work has grown until there are now seven important
+stations with scores of white workers, hundreds of native evangelists,
+one of the best equipped hospitals in Africa, and a manual training
+school that is teaching the youth of the land how to become prosperous
+and constructive citizens. Under its inspiration the population of Luebo
+has grown from two thousand in 1890 to eighteen thousand in 1920.
+
+The two fundamental principles underlying this splendid undertaking
+have been well summed up as follows: "First, the attainment of a Church
+supported by the natives through the thrift and industry of their own
+hands. The time is past when we may merely teach the native to become a
+Christian and then leave him in his poverty and squalor where he can be
+of little or no use to the Church. Second, the preparation of the native
+to take the largest and most influential position possible in the
+development of the Colony. Practically the only thing open to the
+Congolese is along the mechanical and manual lines."
+
+[Illustration: WASHING OUT GRAVEL]
+
+[Illustration: DONALD DOYLE (LEFT) AND MR. MARCOSSON]
+
+One of the noblest actors in this American missionary drama was the late
+Rev. W. M. Morrison, who went out to the Congo in 1896. Realizing that
+the most urgent need was a native dictionary, he reduced the
+Baluba-Lulua language to writing. In 1906 he published a Dictionary and
+Grammar which included the Parables of Christ, the Miracles, the
+Epistles to the Romans in paraphrase. He also prepared a Catechism based
+on the Shorter and Child's Catechisms. This gave the workers in the
+field a definite instrument to employ, and it has been a beneficent
+influence in shaping the lives and morals of the natives.
+
+One phase of the labours of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission
+discloses the bondage of the Congo native to the Witch Doctor. The
+moment he feels sick he rushes to the sorcerer, usually a bedaubed
+barbarian who practices weird and mysterious rites, and who generally
+succeeds in killing off his patient. More than ninety per cent of the
+pagan population of Africa not only acknowledges but fears the powers of
+the Witch Doctor. Only two-fifths of one per cent are under Christian
+medical treatment. The Presbyterian Missionaries, therefore, from the
+very outset have sought to bring the native into the ken of the white
+physician. It is a slow process. One almost unsurmountable obstacle lies
+in the uncanny grip that the "medicine man" wields in all the tribes.
+
+It is largely due to the missionaries that the practice of handshaking
+has been introduced in the Congo. Formerly the custom was to clap hands
+when exchanging greetings. The blacks saw the Anglo-Saxons grasp hands
+when they met and being apt imitators in many things, they started to do
+likewise. One of the first things that impressed me in Africa was the
+extraordinary amount of handshaking that went on when the people met
+each other even after a separation of only half an hour.
+
+
+VI
+
+I had originally planned to leave Africa at St. Paul de Loanda in
+Portuguese West Africa, where Thomas F. Ryan and his Belgian associates
+have acquired the new oil wells and set up still another important
+outpost of our overseas financial venturing. But so much time had been
+consumed in reaching Tshikapa that I determined to return to Kinshassa,
+go on to Matadi, and catch the boat for Europe at the end of August.
+
+There were two ways of getting back to Kabambaie. One was to go in an
+automobile through the jungle, and the other by boat down the Kasai.
+Between Kabambaie and Djoko Punda there is practically no navigation on
+account of the succession of dangerous rapids. Since my faith in the
+jitney was still impaired I chose the river route and it gave me the
+most stirring of all my African experiences. The two motor boats at
+Tshikapa were out of commission so I started at daybreak in a whale-boat
+manned by forty naked native paddlers.
+
+The fog still hung over the countryside and the scene as we got under
+way was like a Rackham drawing of goblins and ghosts. I sat forward in
+the boat with the ranks of singing, paddling blacks behind me. From the
+moment we started and until I landed, the boys kept up an incessant
+chanting. One of their number sat forward and pounded the iron gunwale
+with a heavy stick. When he stopped pounding the paddlers ceased their
+efforts. The only way to make the Congo native work is to provide him
+with noise.
+
+All day we travelled down the river through schools of hippopotami, some
+of them near enough for me to throw a stone into the cavernous mouths.
+The boat capita told me that he would get to Kabambaie by sundown. Like
+the average New York restaurant waiter, he merely said what he thought
+his listener wanted to hear. I fervently hoped he was right because we
+not only had a series of rapids to shoot up-river, but at Kabambaie is a
+seething whirlpool that has engulfed hundreds of natives and their
+boats. At sunset we had only passed through the first of the troubled
+zones. Nightfall without a moon found me still moving, and with the
+swirling eddy far ahead.
+
+I had many close calls during the war. They ranged from the first-line
+trenches of France, Belgium, and Italy to the mine fields of the North
+Sea while a winter gale blew. I can frankly say that I never felt such
+apprehension as on the face of those surging waters, with black night
+and the impenetrable jungle about me. The weird singing of the paddlers
+only heightened the suspense. I thought that every tight place would be
+my last. Finally at eight o'clock, and after it seemed that I had spent
+years on the trip, we bumped up against the shore of Kabambaie, within a
+hundred feet of the fatal spot.
+
+The faithful Moody, who preceded me, had revived life in the jonah
+jitney and at dawn the next day we started at full speed and reached
+Djoko Punda by noon. The "Madeleine" was waiting for me with steam up,
+for I sent a runner ahead. I had ordered Nelson back from Kabambaie
+because plenty of servants were available there. He spent his week of
+idleness at Djoko Punda in exploring every food known to the country. At
+one o'clock I was off on the first real stage of my homeward journey.
+The swift current made the downward trip much faster than the upward and
+I was not sorry.
+
+As we neared Basongo the captain came to me and said, "I see two
+Americans standing on the bank. Shall I take them aboard?"
+
+Almost before I could say that I would be delighted, we were within
+hailing distance of the post. An American voice with a Cleveland, Ohio,
+accent called out to me and asked my name. When I told him, he said,
+"I'll give you three copies of the _Saturday Evening Post_ if you will
+take us down to Dima. We have been stranded here for nearly three weeks
+and want to go home."
+
+I yelled back that they were more than welcome for I not only wanted to
+help out a pair of countrymen in distress but I desired some
+companionship on the boat. They were Charles H. Davis and Henry
+Fairbairn, both Forminiere engineers who had made their way overland
+from the Angola diamond fields. Only one down-bound Belgian boat had
+passed since their arrival and it was so crowded with Belgian officials
+on their way to Matadi to catch the August steamer for Europe, that
+there was no accommodation for them. By this time they were joined by a
+companion in misfortune, an American missionary, the Rev. Roy Fields
+Cleveland, who was attached to the Mission at Luebo. He had come to
+Basongo on the little missionary steamer, "The Lapsley," and sent it
+back, expecting to take the Belgian State boat. Like the engineers, he
+could get no passage.
+
+Davis showed his appreciation of my rescue of the party by immediately
+handing over the three copies of the Post, which were more than seven
+months old and which had beguiled his long nights in the field.
+Cleveland did his bit in the way of gratitude by providing hot griddle
+cakes every morning. He had some American cornmeal and he had taught his
+native servant how to produce the real article.
+
+At Dima I had the final heart-throb of the trip. I had arranged to take
+the "Fumu N'Tangu," a sister ship of the "Madeleine," from this point to
+Kinshassa. When I arrived I found that she was stuck on a sandbank one
+hundred miles down the river. My whole race against time to catch the
+August steamer would have been futile if I could not push on to
+Kinshassa at once.
+
+Happily, the "Yser," the State boat that had left Davis, Fairbairn, and
+Cleveland high and dry at Basongo, had put in at Dima the day before to
+repair a broken paddle-wheel and was about to start. I beat the
+"Madeleine's" gangplank to the shore and tore over to the Captain of the
+"Yser." When I told him I had to go to Kinshassa he said, "I cannot take
+you. I only have accommodations for eight people and am carrying forty."
+I flashed my royal credentials on him and he yielded. I got the sofa, or
+rather the bench called a sofa, in his cabin.
+
+On the "Yser" I found Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Crane, both Southerners,
+who were returning to the United States after eight years at service at
+one of the American Presbyterian Mission Stations. With them were their
+two youngest children, both born in the Congo. The eldest girl, who was
+five years old, could only speak the Baluba language. From her infancy
+her nurses had been natives and she was facing the problem of going to
+America for the first time without knowing a word of English. It was
+quaintly amusing to hear her jabber with the wood-boys and the firemen
+on board and with the people of the various villages where we
+stopped.
+
+[Illustration: THE PARK AT BOMA]
+
+[Illustration: A STREET IN MATADI]
+
+The Cranes were splendid types of the American missionary workers for
+they were human and companionable. I had found Cleveland of the same
+calibre. Like many other men I had an innate prejudice against the
+foreign church worker before I went to Africa. I left with a strong
+admiration for him, and with it a profound respect.
+
+Kinshassa looked good to me when we arrived after four days' travelling,
+but I did not tarry long. I was relieved to find that I was in ample
+time to catch the August steamer at Matadi. It was at Kinshassa that I
+learned of the nominations of Cox and Harding for the Presidency,
+although the news was months old.
+
+The morning after I reached Stanley Pool I boarded a special car on the
+historic narrow-gauge railway that runs from Kinshassa to Matadi. At the
+station I was glad to meet Major and Mrs. Wallace, who like myself were
+bound for home. I invited them to share my car and we pulled out. On
+this railway, as on all other Congo lines, the passengers provide their
+own food. The Wallaces had their servant whom I recognized as one of the
+staff at Alberta. Nelson still held the fort for me. Between us we
+mobilized an elaborate lunch fortified by fruit that we bought at one of
+the many stations where we halted.
+
+We spent the night at the hotel at Thysville high in the mountains and
+where it was almost freezing cold. This place is named for General
+Albert Thys, who was attached to the colonial administration of King
+Leopold and who founded the Compagnie du Congo Pour le Commerce et
+l'Industrie, the "Queen-Dowager," as it is called, of all the Congo
+companies. His most enduring monument, however, is the Chemin de Fer du
+Congo Matadi-Stanley Pool. He felt with Stanley that there could be no
+development of the Congo without a railway between Matadi and Stanley
+Pool.
+
+The necessity was apparent. At Matadi, which is about a hundred miles
+from the sea, navigation on the Congo River ceases because here begins a
+succession of cataracts that extend almost as far as Leopoldville. In
+the old days all merchandise had to be carried in sixty-pound loads to
+Stanley Pool on the heads of natives. The way is hard for it is up and
+down hill and traverses swamps and morasses. Every year ten thousand men
+literally died in their tracks. The human loss was only one detail of
+the larger loss of time.
+
+Under the stimulating leadership of General Thys, the railway was
+started in 1890 and was opened for traffic eight and a half years later.
+Perhaps no railway in the world took such heavy toll. It is two hundred
+and fifty miles in length and every kilometer cost a white life and
+every meter a black one. Only the graves of the whites are marked. You
+can see the unending procession of headstones along the right of way.
+During its construction the project was bitterly assailed. The wiseacres
+contended that it was visionary, impracticable, and impossible. In this
+respect it suffered the same experience as all the other pioneering
+African railways and especially those of Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast,
+Uganda, and the Soudan.
+
+The scenery between Thysville and Matadi is noble and inspiring. The
+track winds through grim highlands and along lovely valleys. The hills
+are rich with colour, and occasionally you can see a frightened antelope
+scurrying into cover in the woods. As you approach Matadi the landscape
+takes on a new and more rugged beauty. Almost before you realize it,
+you emerge from a curve in the mountains and the little town so
+intimately linked with Stanley's early trials as civilizer, lies before
+you.
+
+Matadi is built on a solid piece of granite. The name is a version of
+the word _matari_ which means rock. In certain parts of Africa the
+letter "r" is often substituted for "d." Stanley's native name was in
+reality "Bula Matari," but on account of the license that I have
+indicated he is more frequently known as "Bula Matadi," the title now
+bestowed on all officials in the Congo. It was at Matadi that Stanley
+received the designation because he blasted a road through the rocks
+with dynamite.
+
+With its winding and mountainous streets and its polyglot population,
+Matadi is a picturesque spot. It is the goal of every official through
+the long years of his service in the bush for at this place he boards
+the steamer that takes him to Europe. This is the pleasant side of the
+picture. On the other hand, Matadi is where the incoming ocean traveller
+first sets foot on Congo soil. If it happens to be the wet season the
+foot is likely to be scorched for it is by common consent one of the
+hottest spots in all the universe. That well-known fable about frying an
+egg in the sun is an every-day reality here six months of the year.
+
+Matadi is the administrative center of the Lower Congo railway which has
+extensive yards, repair-shops, and hospitals for whites and blacks.
+Nearby are the storage tanks and pumping station of the oil pipe line
+that extends from Matadi to Kinshassa. It was installed just before the
+Great War and has only been used for one shipment of fluid. With the
+outbreak of hostilities it was impossible to get petroleum. Now that
+peace has come, its operations will be resumed because it is planned to
+convert many of the Congo River steamers into oil-burners.
+
+Tied up at a Matadi quay was "The Schoodic," one of the United States
+Shipping Board war-built freighters. The American flag at her stern gave
+me a real thrill for with the exception of the solitary national emblem
+I had seen at Tshikapa it was the first I had beheld since I left
+Capetown. I lunched several times on board and found the international
+personnel so frequent in our merchant marine. The captain was a native
+of the West Indies, the first mate had been born in Scotland, the chief
+engineer was a Connecticut Yankee, and the steward a Japanese. They were
+a happy family though under the Stars and Stripes and we spent many
+hours together spinning yarns and wishing we were back home.
+
+In the Congo nothing ever moves on schedule time. I expected to board
+the steamer immediately after my arrival at Matadi and proceed to
+Antwerp. There was the usual delay, and I had to wait a week. Hence the
+diversion provided by "The Schoodic" was a godsend.
+
+The blessed day came when I got on "The Anversville" and changed from
+the dirt and discomfort of the river boat and the colonial hotel to the
+luxury of the ocean vessel. It was like stepping into paradise to get
+settled once more in an immaculate cabin with its shining brass bedstead
+and the inviting bathroom adjacent. I spent an hour calmly sitting on
+the divan and revelling in this welcome environment. It was almost too
+good to be true.
+
+Nelson remained with me to the end. He helped the stewards place my
+luggage in the ship, which was the first liner he had ever seen. He was
+almost appalled at its magnitude. I asked him if he would like to
+accompany me to Europe. He shook his head solemnly and said, "No,
+master. The ship is too big and I am afraid of it. I want to go home to
+Elizabethville." As a parting gift I gave him more money than he had
+ever before seen in his life. It only elicited this laconic response,
+"Now I am rich enough to buy a wife." With these words he bade me
+farewell.
+
+[Illustration: A GENERAL VIEW OF MATADI]
+
+"The Anversville" was another agreeable surprise. She is one of three
+sister ships in the service of the Compagnie Belge Maritime du Congo.
+The other two are "The Albertville" and "The Elizabethville." The
+original "Elizabethville" was sunk by a German submarine during the war
+off the coast of France. These vessels are big, clean, and comfortable
+and the service is excellent.
+
+All vessels to and from Europe stop at Boma, the capital of the Congo,
+which is five hours steaming down river from Matadi. We remained here
+for a day and a half because the Minister of the Colonies was to go back
+on "The Anversville." I was glad of the opportunity for it enabled me to
+see this town, which is the mainspring of the colonial administration.
+The palace of the Governor-General stands on a commanding hill and is a
+pretentious establishment. The original capital of the Congo was Vivi,
+established by Stanley at a point not far from Matadi. It was abandoned
+some year ago on account of its undesirable location. There is a strong
+sentiment that Leopoldville and not Boma should be the capital and it is
+not unlikely that this change will be made.
+
+The Minister of the Colonies and Monsieur Henry, the Governor-General,
+who also went home on our boat, received a spectacular send-off. A
+thousand native troops provided the guard of honour which was drawn up
+on the bank of the river. Native bands played, flags waved, and the
+populace, which included hundreds of blacks, shouted a noisy farewell.
+
+Slowly and majestically the vessel backed away from the pier and turned
+its prow downstream. With mingled feelings of relief and regret I
+watched the shores recede as the body of the river widened. Near the
+mouth it is twenty miles wide and hundreds of feet deep.
+
+At Banana Point I looked my last on the Congo River. For months I had
+followed its winding way through a land that teems with hidden life and
+resists the inroads of man. I had been lulled to sleep by its dull roar;
+I had observed its varied caprice; I had caught the glamour of its
+subtle charm. Something of its vast and mysterious spirit laid hold of
+me. Now at parting the mighty stream seemed more than ever to be
+invested with a tenacious human quality. Sixty miles out at sea its
+sullen brown current still vies with the green and blue of the ocean
+swell. It lingers like the spell of all Africa.
+
+The Congo is merely a phase of the larger lure.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+Albert, King of Belgium, 141, 226, 240
+Albert, Lake, 60, 180
+Alberta, 208, 209, 211, 212, 214
+Albertville, 60
+Ants, 155, 156
+Armour, J. Ogden, 125
+
+Bailey, Sir Abe, 135
+Ball, Sidney H., 244, 245
+Baluba, 203
+Bangala, The, 194, 195, 200, 203
+Barclay, Mrs. Edwin, 265
+Barclay, Mr. Edwin, 265, 270
+Barnato, Barney, 70-80, 86
+Basuto, 92
+
+Bechuanaland, 103, 106-108, 113
+Behr, H. C., 86
+Beira, 119, 127, 150
+Belgian Congo, 59, 81, 107, 124, 125, 130, 139-177, 225, 227-230, 241-284
+Benguella, 151
+Bia Expedition, 241
+Bolobo, 202
+Botha, General, 16-17, 19, 22, 23, 24-26, 38, 39, 74, 98
+Braham, I. F., 212, 213, 214
+Brandsma, Father, 192, 193
+British South Africa Company, 108-111, 115, 126-127
+Broken Hill Railway, 146
+Bukama, 61, 160, 163
+Bulawayo, 104-106, 112, 113, 127, 130, 134, 135, 144, 150
+Bunge, Edward, 244
+Butner, Daniel, 149
+Butters, Charles, 86, 88
+
+Cairo, 57
+Cameroons, 100, 101
+Campbell, J. G., 167-168
+"Cape-boy," 93
+Cape Colony, 23, 64
+"Cape-to-Cairo," 57-101, 108, 146, 150-151
+Capetown, 17, 28-30, 57, 68, 74, 76, 104, 105, 114
+Carnahan, Thomas, 149
+Carrie, Albert, 248-249
+Carson, Sir Edward, 27
+Casement, Sir Roger, 100, 142
+Chaka, 105
+Chaplin, Sir Drummond, 109-110
+Chilembwe, John, 94
+Clement, Victor M., 86, 88
+Cleveland, President, 227
+Cleveland, Rev. Roy Fields, 277, 278
+"Comte de Flandre," 189-192, 197
+Congo-Kasai Province, 221, 246, 248
+Congo River, The, 59, 140-145, 153, 160-162, 179-284
+Coquilhatville, 201-202, 216
+Crane, Mr. and Mrs. Charles L., 278-279
+Creswell, Col. F. H. P., 29-30
+Cullinan, Thomas M., 90
+Curtis, J. S., 86, 88
+
+Davis, Charles H., 277, 278
+Dean, Captain, 187, 188
+DeBeers, 78-80, 129
+Delcommune, Alexander, 243-244
+Diamonds, 64, 76, 77-90, 94, 134, 135, 146, 152, 244, 265;
+  Congo Fields, 265-269;
+  Congo Output, 152
+Djoko Punda, 225, 247, 255, 269, 275, 276
+Doyle, Donald, 259, 262, 267
+Doyle, Mrs. Donald, 264
+Dubois, Lieutenant, 187-188
+Dunn, Dr. John, 262
+Durban 69
+Dutoitspan Mine, 81
+
+Elizabethville, 145, 147, 148, 149, 153, 157, 181
+
+Fairbairn, Henry, 277, 278
+Forminiere, The, 225-228, 232-234, 237, 256, 257, 261, 277
+Franck, Louis, 169-176, 179
+Francqui, Emile, 239-243
+Fungurume, 157, 160
+
+George, Lloyd, 15, 38, 40-42, 45
+German East Africa, 70, 101, 166
+German South-West Africa, 25, 70, 73, 81, 99, 101, 152
+Germany in Africa, 98-101, 150, 151, 165, 166, 174, 210, 216, 231
+Gerome, 157, 181
+Gordon, General, 58, 187
+Grenfell, George, 198, 201, 203, 255
+Grey, George, 147
+Groote Schuur, 32-34, 36, 41, 47, 53, 114
+Guggenheim, Daniel, 235
+
+Hammond, John Hays, 84, 86, 88, 128-129, 235
+Harriman, E. H., 238, 239
+Hellman, Fred, 86
+Hertzog, General W. B. M., 25-28, 46, 50-51, 53
+Hex River, 76
+Honnold, W. L., 86
+Horner, Preston K., 149, 157
+Hottentot, 92, 93
+Hoy, Sir William W., 66-67
+Huileries du Congo Belge, 189, 208-212, 222, 226, 263
+
+Jadot, Jean, 237-238, 239, 241, 243
+Jameson, Raid, 23, 86, 87, 89, 100, 115
+Jameson, Sir Starr 80, 89, 106, 111, 117, 136
+Janot, N., 245
+Jenkins, Hennen, 86, 87
+Jennings, Sidney, 86
+Johannesburg, 30, 65, 76, 78, 84, 85, 89, 93, 103, 105, 244
+Johnston, Sir Harry, 197, 201, 203, 212, 255
+
+Kabalo, 60, 165
+Kabambaie, 258, 259, 275, 276
+Kaffir, 64, 71, 82, 92, 266
+Kahew, Frank, 149
+Kambove, 149, 150
+Karoo, 77
+Kasai River, 95-96, 156, 189, 191, 199, 217, 223, 225, 227, 246, 247,
+    249, 253-258, 264, 269, 275
+Katanga, 145-146, 147, 148, 149, 150-153, 165, 174-175, 181, 194, 226, 241
+Kimberley, 64, 76, 77, 90, 94, 134, 135, 146, 154, 244, 265
+Kindu, 59, 168-169, 170
+Kinshassa, 153, 190, 201, 216, 217, 221-222, 247, 275, 281
+Kitchener, Lord, 15, 39, 77
+Kito, 180-181
+Kongolo, 59, 166, 168, 177
+Kruger, Paul, 22, 38, 47, 87-88, 89, 100, 107
+Kwamouth, 217, 247
+Kwilu River, 47, 209, 226
+
+Labram, George, 82-83
+Lane, Capt. E. F. C., 43
+Leggett, T. H., 86
+Leopold, King, 106, 139, 142, 150, 158, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230-235,
+    244, 245
+Leopoldville, 221, 222
+Leverhulme, Lord, 189, 208, 248
+Leverville, 209
+Lewaniki, 125
+Livingstone, Dr., 184, 185, 254
+Lobengula, 105, 106, 112, 115, 134
+"Louis Cousin," 160-162
+Lowa, 170
+Lualaba River, 59, 60, 160, 161-164, 168, 170, 177, 190, 191, 197
+Luluaburg, 215
+Lusanga, 249, 251
+
+Mabonda Mine, 265, 270
+"Madeleine," 252-254, 276
+Mafeking, 103
+Maguire, Rochfort, 107
+Mahagi, 59-60, 62
+Maize, 124-125
+Mashonaland, 106, 111-112
+Matabele, 103, 105, 106, 112, 113, 115, 126, 134
+Matadi, 279-281, 282
+Matopo Hills, 113-114, 115, 135
+McMillan, William, 267
+McMillan, Mrs. William, 268
+Mein, Capt. Thomas, 86, 88
+Mein, W. W., 86
+Merriman, J. X., 94
+Milner, Lord, 118
+Mohun, R. D. L., 244, 245, 246
+Moody, G. D., 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 276
+Morgan, J. P. 74, 228, 238
+Morrison, Rev. W. M., 273
+Moul, R. D., 143
+
+Nanda, 254, 255
+Natal, 21, 23, 78, 122
+Nelson, 181-182, 248, 257, 258, 276, 282, 283
+Newport, Glenn H., 271
+Nile River, 59, 60, 175
+Nyassaland, 94, 142
+
+Oliver, Roland B., 245
+Orange Free State, 21, 23, 25, 50, 106, 139
+
+Perkins, H. C., 86
+Plumer, Lord, 113
+Ponthierville, 59, 152, 170
+Port Elizabeth, 72, 77
+Portuguese East Africa, 106, 112, 113, 150
+Prester, John, 94
+Pretoria, 47, 76, 90, 93
+
+Rand, The, 84-85, 86, 87, 89, 152, 249
+Reid, A. E. H., 245
+Reid, C. A., 245
+Rey, General de la, 25, 45
+Rhodes, Cecil, 17, 20, 32, 58, 60-61, 77-83, 86, 104-110, 114-121,
+    125, 129-137, 150, 165, 186, 230
+Rhodesia, 18, 33, 59, 94, 103-110, 114-121, 122-131
+Roberts, Lord, 16
+Robinson, J. B., 85
+Robison, J. E., 256, 258
+Rondebosch, 32
+Roos, Tielman, 53-54
+Roosevelt, Theodore, 19
+Rudd, C. D., 107
+Ryan, Thomas F., 228, 232-235, 244, 275
+
+Sabin, Charles H., 74
+Sakania, 144
+Sanford, General H. S., 227, 228
+Selous, F. C., 111
+Seymour, Louis, 86
+Shaler, Millard K., 245
+Smartt, Sir Thomas, 52
+Smith, Hamilton, 86
+Smuts, Jan Christian, 15-20, 23, 24-26, 28, 29-56, 98
+Snow, Frederick, 149
+Societe Generale, 234-236, 239
+Solvay, Edmond, 244
+Soudan Railway, 60
+Stanley, Henry M., 159, 166, 170, 177, 183, 184, 185-188, 194, 196,
+    201, 203, 217, 218-221, 227, 228, 230, 255, 262
+Stanley Pool, 218, 222, 279
+Stanleyville, 59, 162, 166, 168, 169, 175, 177-180, 183, 185, 189,
+    190, 196, 200
+Steyne, President, 49
+Stoddard, Lothrop, 96
+Stonelake, Dr., 202
+
+Tambeur, General, 165
+Tanganyika Lake, 60, 142, 150, 166, 169
+Teneriffe, 69
+Thompson, F. R., 107
+Thompson, Samuel, 86
+Thompson, W. B., 74
+Thys, General Albert, 279, 280
+Tippo Tib, 166, 184-185
+Togoland, 100-101
+"Tony", 133
+Transvaal, 21, 23, 50, 106
+Tshikapa, 247, 256, 259, 262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 275, 282
+
+Uganda, 59
+Union of South Africa, 18, 20, 23
+
+Van den Hove, Adrian M., 251-252
+Venezilos, 15
+Verner, S. P., 244
+Victoria Falls, 104, 127, 130-132
+Vryburg, 119
+
+Wallace, Major Claude, 212, 213, 214
+Wallace, Mrs. Claude, 212
+Wangermee, General Emile, 148
+Wankie, 128
+Ward, Herbert, 184-188, 203
+Warriner, Ruel C., 86
+Webb, H. H., 86
+Webber, George, 86
+Wheeler, A. E., 149
+Whitney, Harry Payne, 235
+Williams, Gardner F., 82, 88
+Williams, Robert, 61, 146, 150, 151, 175
+Wilson, Woodrow, 37, 40, 42, 43, 50
+Wissmann, Herman, 255
+
+Yale, Thomas, 149
+Yeatman, Pope, 86
+
+Zambesi River, 18, 109, 131-132
+Zambesia, 108
+Zimbabwe Ruins, 130
+Zulu, 64, 71, 82, 92, 93, 266
+
+
+
+
+    *Transcriber's notes:*
+
+    Typos replaced:
+
+    Pg 26: separate streams ==> separate streams"
+    Pg 38: Africa.--the ==> Africa,--the
+    Pg 40: betwen ==> between
+    Pg 49: man con ==> man can
+    Pg 51: betwen ==> between
+    Pg 52: Britian ==> Britain
+    Pg 56: 'The destiny ==> "The destiny
+    Pg 56: Britian ==> Britain
+    Pg 57: n the world ==> in the world
+    Pg 59: beteween ==> between
+    Pg 72: It no ==> It is no
+    Pg 73: a quarter or ==> a quarter of
+    Pg 73: reoganization ==> reorganization
+    Pg 82: speriority ==> superiority
+    Pg 89: Eeast ==> East
+    Pg 89: stragetic ==> strategic
+    Pg 100: auother ==> another
+    Pg 101: Belian ==> Belgian
+    Pg 103: III ==> CHAPTER III
+    Pg 103: 'We've ==> "We've
+    Pg 110: irrenconcilable ==> irreconcilable
+    Pg 124: considering, Every ==> considering. Every
+    Pg 124: stock, The ==> stock. The
+    Pg 131: maximun ==> maximum
+    Pg 132: marval ==> marvel
+    Pg 139: IV ==> CHAPTER IV
+    Pg 139: controversay ==> controversy
+    Pg 152: developent ==> development
+    Pg 163: invarably ==> invariably
+    Pg 163: conspicious ==> conspicuous
+    Pg 166: rail-dead ==> rail-head
+    Pg 169: distaseful ==> distasteful
+    Pg 174: Rockerfeller ==> Rockefeller
+    Pg 177: V ==> CHAPTER V
+    Pg 182: Adthough ==> Although
+    Pg 184: invaribly ==> invariably
+    Pg 184: cruelity ==> cruelty
+    Pg 186: exporations ==> exploration
+    Pg 187: capured ==> captured
+    Pg 190: removed whole line "from his automobile and the creaky, jolty
+      train started" from between "that you" and "feel on"
+    Pg 191: sacrified ==> sacrificed
+    Pg 193: Uguanda ==> Uganda
+    Pg 195: resplendant ==> resplendent
+    Pg 201: high sease ==> high seas
+    Pg 210: incased ==> encased
+    Pg 214: unforgetable ==> unforgettable
+    Pg 219: arival ==> arrival
+    Pg 222: Begian ==> Belgian
+    Pg 225: VI ==> CHAPTER VI
+    Pg 226: Transporte ==> Transports
+    Pg 241: Forminere ==> Forminiere
+    Pg 243: Banqe ==> Banque
+    Pg 249: chololate-hued ==> chocolate-hued
+    Pg 255: heirarchy ==> hierarchy
+    Pg 255: Wissman ==> Wissmann
+    Pg 258: Fir ==> For
+    Pg 270: that ==> than
+    Pg 283: that ==> than
+    Pg 285: 194 ==> 194,
+    Pg 286: 85' ==> 85,
+    Pg 287: Societe ==> Societe
+    Pg 288: Wissman ==> Wissmann
+
+    No attempt was made to harmonise inconsistent hyphenation; e.g. both
+    spellings _bed-room_ and _bedroom_ can be found in this book.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's An African Adventure, by Isaac F. Marcosson
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AFRICAN ADVENTURE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 25569.txt or 25569.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/5/6/25569/
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Julio Reis, Linda McKeown and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.