Ibembo to Stanley Falls.
The Delivrance a steamer built on the same lines as the Florida arrives at Ibembo on December 5th with a large cargo of cloth, clothes, beads, salt and other articles for barter, and also cases of food for the Europeans. This is almost her last voyage up the Itimbiri this season, for soon the waters will have fallen so low that the river will be navigable only by canoes. No time is wasted in the Congo State. As soon as the cargo was discharged, the empty holds were filled with baskets of rubber and ivory and in less than twenty four hours after her arrival, the steamer was ready to depart.
Having arranged to travel by this boat, my baggage was soon on board, and we left Ibembo at midday on the 6th of December. At first the river passes between the cliff fronting the plateau, on which the Mission stands and low lying forest on the opposite bank. The cliff is red, and is evidently full of iron. In a short time however, both banks become flat and are covered with forest broken at intervals by villages which are well arranged, clean and tidy. Some of them are wood posts, and one is occupied by old soldiers, who have built themselves very good houses. These veterans have no pension, but are given materials to form plantations, and also supply the steamers with wood at the usual rate. They rarely, if ever, return to their native villages, which they left seven or ten years before as naked savages, for they are now smart civilised men and imitate the appearance and manners of the Europeans as closely as possible.
About 6 p.m. we reach the Post of Mandungu, situated on the right bank of the Itimbiri. It is very well built and scrupulously tidy. Behind is a high wooden stockade, and in front, along the river bank is a small wall broken by a kind of arbour, in which is a brass gun with the interesting inscription G.R. III 1799.
On again at daybreak down the swiftly running stream. The Itimbiri indeed, like its principal feeders, the Likati and Rubi, is rapidly falling, for the dry season has now commenced in earnest, and although thunder-storms are frequent, they are not accompanied by rain. We stop at Moenge, a small post on the left bank of the river, for the mail, and then on again until the Congo is reached an hour before sunset. The great river is still very full of water, which shows no signs at present of falling. This is, only to be expected, for all the tributaries are now emptying themselves into the main stream, which is thus kept high for some weeks after they have commenced to fall. We turn down the Congo and after passing some villages and a post of the S.A.B. Trading Company, reach Bumba at sunset.
This is an important shipping port, for the large vessels stop here owing to the difficulty of navigating the Congo higher up. All the cargo for Stanley Falls and the Upper Congo, as well as that for Uele, has therefore to be transhipped here. The place is designed in a series of squares, one side of each being formed by the river while the spaces thus left are filled with well kept gardens, the whole being very effective. Mr. Simon, the commandant of the Station kindly lends me a house and also arranges to allow the Delivrance to take me up to Stanley Falls as soon as her cargo has been discharged. On each side of the Post are villages extending along the river bank. The men here wear a loin cloth, but the women only bangles, and the tatouage is varied and extensive.
Next day the Delivrance was charged with sheets of corrugated iron for building purposes and it was very interesting to watch the natives carrying these to the ship. Like some civilised people, the natives are so lazy that they often give themselves a great deal of work in the effort to avoid it. The plates were of various sizes and shapes and consequently of various weights. Sauntering slowly up to the stack on the beach, one of the porters would examine it carefully and search for as small a load as possible. Then he would either lift the upper ten or twelve plates or try to pull the one he had chosen out from the stack. Having accomplished his object thus with great exertion, he would put the plate on his head and carry it leisurely the few yards to the boat. Of course the larger ones had to be moved some time, and in reality at the end of the day the lazy fellows had thus done more work than was necessary. Compared with Hindu or Chinese coolies, the Central Africans indeed both in the plantations and at the dock side, accomplish rather less than half the amount of work in the same time. The paddlers, on the other hand, cannot be called lazy, and when propelling canoes against strong currents or up rapids, exert themselves to the utmost.
We leave Bumba on December 9th in the Delivrance and turn up stream. After passing the mouth of the Itimbiri the banks are unoccupied for many miles, dense unbroken forest lining each shore. Here and there is a wood post and we pass also two considerable areas which had evidently been cleared some time ago and occupied by villages. The people, however, were very troublesome in these parts and have since migrated into the interior leaving the ancient sites to elephants and other beasts. It is very much more comfortable on the Delivrance than on the larger steamers, for, being the only passenger, I have plenty of room in the cabin below and as usual in these small craft, we have all our meals on the bridge.
LOADING A BARGE.
On the 11th we arrive at Barumbu, a small Post with a large brick house for the Commissaire when he visits the place. Here most of the natives were dancing and looked very ridiculous. They did not move over the ground and seemed to be doing a kind of physical drill. First one leg was kicked forwards and backwards while the other did a heavy stiff looking hop. Then perhaps the arms were thrown up and down and the whole body advanced from the hips, and finally the head was jerked to and fro. These movements were repeated time after time, evidently in a regular set order, for once started, several people performed exactly the same in perfect time whether they could see each other or were back to back. The whole affair looked stiff and ungracious, but was keenly enjoyed by the natives.
GENERAL VIEW OF BASOKO.
An hour later we arrived at Basoko, the capital of the Aruwimi District. It is different from other Posts, for it has a wall running along the river front with a square tower in the centre, giving the appearance of fortification. There are indeed a few guns here, but not many troops. After paying a short visit to the Commissaire General of Aruwimi, Captain Pimpurnieaux, we continue our journey.
Next morning was pay day, all the ordinary seamen receiving 21 mitakos a week, but the capitas and wheelmen were given more. These latter are usually a very responsible set of men, for after a few journeys they remember every island and land-mark on the river and often steer all day without a word of command from the captain. About midday we met the Ville de Paris which differs from the other steamers in having her wheels at the side instead of at the stern. This arrangement has not however, proved a success, for this boat is neither so fast nor so easily steered as the others.
I am now troubled with a new complaint, synovitis of the knee joint with a good deal of effusion, which makes it very difficult to walk. It is curious why this malady should have appeared, for I had not knocked or otherwise injured the joint and had indeed been sitting quietly on steamers all day for the previous week.
On the afternoon of the 12th we reach Isangi, a Post at the junction of the Lomami and the Congo. This river drains the territory occupied by the Company of the same name and we turn up it to visit Hambi, the chief town. There are a few large villages on the banks where the natives exhibit a curious method of hair dressing. It is allowed to grow long, which is very unusual in the Congo, and is then turned up and matted together on the top of the head with grease and the red powder of the cam-wood. The effect is, that each appears to be wearing a red and black cloth cap.
We reach Hambi, which is a large Station well built and very tidy, the next day. The Company leases a very extensive territory along the river banks and does a large trade in rubber and ivory, the Brazilian variety of the former growing here very well. The natives are quite satisfied, work well and give very little trouble, although it is necessary to punish them sometimes, and as usual, the prisoners on the chain are given work to do outside the prison. We stay here one day and then descend the Lomani, and turn up the Congo. The banks of the river now have a new appearance, for they are higher and no longer densely wooded and at short intervals are villages thickly populated and containing a high percentage of children. Most of the men fish or build canoes, and all the people seem to be constantly trading with each other, selling food or curiosities for mitakos or cloth.
We stop for the night at Yonanghe, a Post which has been built by a true native of the Congo, who at one time was the boy of Inspecteur d'Etat, Malfeyt. He has travelled to Europe, speaks French and English and makes an excellent Chef du Poste, which rank he enjoys officially, with all its rights and privileges. Everyone agrees he is thoroughly responsible and a very good friend, but if a captain of a steamer offends him, he will not sell him a chicken or even an egg for any sum.
On the 15th we reach Yakussu, where is a Mission Station of the English Baptists. As I cannot go ashore, the missionary, Mr. Stapleton, comes on board and we have an interesting chat. He has known the Bangala District for many years and has seen the riverside population diminish very much during the last fifteen years. This he ascribes partly to the Sleeping Sickness and partly to emigration to the State Posts. At first it was very difficult for the people to raise enough food for themselves and for the soldiers in the Posts, and to avoid the hard work, many accepted service under the State. Here however, near Stanley Falls, there is plenty of food and the people have no difficulty in providing for their own wants and in supplying the State Posts as well. He thinks that after the cruelty of the Arabs, the rule of the white man appears as heaven to the native. All are therefore contented and happy, and as there is very little Sleeping Sickness, the population is increasing. The Mission boys are taught to be carpenters, masons and brick makers, for food is so plentiful that there is no need to establish plantations. The chief grievance of Mr. Stapleton is, that the Government will not permit the missionaries to settle where they wish and will not grant them land. Several other missionaries have also complained of this, but some districts are certainly not civilised at present, and it would be dangerous for any white man to live in them without a military guard. It thus happens that while there are a great number of Mission Stations along the Congo in the part where the population has diminished greatly, there is not a single Mission on the State side of the Ubangi river where the people are very numerous.
We arrived at Stanleyville in the afternoon. The town is situated on the north bank of the river and consists of streets of large well built houses with much space in between which is laid out in gardens. On the opposite bank are the works of the railway to Ponthierville, a number of corrugated iron buildings and a large native village. In front, a hundred yards up the river, the lowest of the Stanley Falls can be seen, the white foam glistening in the sunlight as the water rushes over the rocks. The Commissaire of the District—the Province Orientale—Lieutenant De Neullemeister, kindly lends me a house and acts as my host. Fish is very plentiful here, but a sudden and terrible disease has suddenly carried off most of the goats and chickens and we are therefore, rather short of fresh meat for a few days.
Many of the natives have the Arab type of features and their village is quite Arabian in appearance. They are all very civilised and work well, so that much rubber is collected, although the population about Lake Tanganika is not very dense. The women here are clothed and do not work in the plantations at all.
Next day Lieutenant De Neullemeister and I, cross the river and are met by Mr. Adams, the Director of the Railway Company. We enter a truck and proceed along the new line which plunges into dense forest immediately, turning and twisting in many directions in order to avoid the numerous soft places and ravines and although there are a few steep gradients, most of the way the line runs on fairly level ground. The soil is a kind of ferruginous clay in some places and sandy in others and all the bridges are constructed of wood. Mr. Adams says the natives are good workers and that they have had no trouble with them and very little sickness. The gauge of the line is considerably wider than that of the Matadi-Leopoldville railway and at present about thirty kilometres have been finished the whole passing through thick forest with clearings here and there for the huts of the workmen. The difficulties of construction are very great, but these are being surmounted and the cost of transport of material is enormous, for every steel rail six of which weigh a ton has to be carried from Europe to Matadi by ship, then by the railway to Leopoldville, and then up the river for nearly a thousand miles. The Company has its own private steamer, the Kintamo, a stern wheeler of 500 tons which is the largest vessel on the Congo, but like the rest was carried out in sections and put together and launched at Leopoldville. The construction of this railway will thus be costly, and it is doubtful if the amount of produce carried will be sufficient for some years to pay a dividend. The advantages of it will however, be very great, for at present the falls render the river useless for navigation, and everything has to be carried round by hand. Everywhere indeed, there is evidence that the State not only spends enormous sums in opening up the country, but welcomes the formation of private companies who will help them in their gigantic undertaking. It is difficult to realise that probably no man, white or black, has ever set foot in the forest a few hundred yards away, and yet we are travelling smoothly along a steel railroad through a tractless desert of trees propelled by a modern steam locomotive. The line does not pass near a single native village, for this part is not thickly populated and the only creatures whose paths are interrupted, are the elephants, buffaloes and wild pigs. On our return we visit the house of Mr. Adams, a solid structure of brick and European cement, and the Mess of the thirty or forty whites employed on the line who live here very well for mutton as well as goat can be purchased from the natives. The price of everything which has to be carried from Europe is very high at Stanleyville for the cost of transport is very great. In the afternoon, we make a tour of the town, and as it is impossible to walk, I am conveyed in a kind of bathchair resting on one wheel. One boy goes in front and one behind and when the road is very bad or an obstacle is met, they lift the machine bodily over it. It is however, a bumpy ride, for the roads are very rough and the chair has no springs. We pass the Mess, capable of dining sixty men and visit the prison. This is a brick building arranged as a quadrangle with an exercising yard in the centre. The cells are lofty and airy and only one prisoner occupies each, but many sleep in one dormitory. Everywhere great cleanliness is observed, so that one is not altogether surprised to learn that the mortality due to Sleeping Sickness is very small among the prisoners. Some of them are making mats and baskets in the yard, but most are working on the chain outside. In a separate building, the women, who also wear light chains, are cooking dinner for the prison. Indeed, on the whole the lot of a prisoner in the Congo is better than he would be likely to experience in a native village, with the exception that he is compelled to work. Most of the people are sentenced for theft or violence, but one woman was imprisoned for throwing a solution of pepper into the face of her husband and nearly blinding him. There is a separate room set apart for white prisoners, but it has not yet been used and is at present much more satisfactorily occupied by the instruments of the band of the Force Publique.
Near the Mess we pass the house of Tippo-Tip, a small mud structure with a verandah and a roof of grass. It is not used at all now, but is allowed to remain as an historical monument. Stanley was compelled to negotiate with Tippo in order to avoid a conflict at the time when the State was not sufficiently armed to undertake such a task but since then, Arab rule has been entirely driven from Central Africa. Almost opposite the Falls, a fort is being constructed with a ditch all round. When finished, it will be capable of holding the whole garrison and supplies for eighteen months. It is of course, only constructed as a defence against native attacks and is not built strong enough to resist big gun fire.
The quarters of the Force Publique here are very comfortable. Each man has a room to himself about seven feet square constructed of brick and the sergeants have a small house, each containing two rooms and a verandah. I looked into one or two and they were well arranged. Bed and mosquito curtain, table and chair with a few pictures and ornaments, showed what an advance the native had made in civilisation since he slept in a hut on the mud floor.
Finally we visited the motive power which enables all this to be done, the rubber stores. Here people were busy sorting and packing the precious material into baskets ready to be carried to the Barge which was waiting to sail.