The Truth About the Congo: The Chicago Tribune Articles

by Frederick Starr

I believe that one may truly say that children among ourselves represent the stage of savagery; that youth is barbarous; that adult age is civilization. It is true that children among ourselves present many interesting survivals of the savage attitude. In a certain sense savages are children. I think, however, from the points in native character which I here have touched, that my readers will agree with me that the adult native of the Congo is no child. He is a man, but a man different from ourselves. He represents the end of a development, not the beginning.

IV.

January 23, 1907.

HAVING some of the more marked characteristics of the Bantu in mind, let us consider the conditions and circumstances of the white men in the Congo. There are, of course, but three classes—state officials, traders, and missionaries. Practically, the state officials and the traders are in the same condition; the missionary is so differently circumstanced that he must be considered independently.

Few persons can imagine the trying climate and the serious diseases of the Congo region. It is claimed that Nigeria is worse. It may be, but, if so, I should wish to keep away from Nigeria. Fever, of course, abounds in all the Lower Congo districts. If one escapes it for a time it is so much the worse for him when finally he succumbs to the infliction. It is only malaria, but it is malaria of the most insidious and weakening sort. A man is up and working in the early morning; at noonday he takes to his bed with fever; at night or next morning he may again be at his daily work.

It seems a trifling thing—a disease which often lasts less than a day. But the man is left weak and nerveless. The next attack continues the weakening process. Finally, with blood impoverished and strength exhausted, he dies. Of course, the remedy is quinine. Careful people going into the Congo begin to take their daily dose of this specific at the beginning of their journey, so that they may be fortified against attack before arrival. For the most part the English missionaries take two, three, five, or six grains daily throughout the period of their stay. Some foreigners prefer ten grain doses on the 1st, 11th, and 21st of every month. Few really refuse to take it, and such usually find an early grave.

The disadvantage of this constant dosing with quinine is the danger of the dreaded hæmaturic fever. This dread disease rarely attacks a person until he has been a year in the Congo. It is commonly attributed to the system being loaded up with quinine. The instant that its symptoms develop, the order to cease taking quinine is promptly issued. Among the European population of the Congo, hæmaturic fever is regularly expected to have a fatal issue. It is more than probable that the use of wines, beers, and liquors predisposes the system to a fatal result. Plenty of missionaries die of hæmaturic fever also, but the appearance of the disease among them by no means produces the panic which it does among continentals. Perhaps one in five or six cases dies, two of the remainder flee to Europe, the other three recover. But the disease is no trifling matter, and must be seriously taken.

Few persons realize the frightful effect of the tropical sun in Central Africa. When Jameson came down the river from the ill-fated Yambuya camp, natives on the shore sent a flight of arrows against his paddlers, not knowing that a white man was present with them in the canoe. To show them that such was the case and prevent further attack Jameson stood in his canoe and waved his hat at the assailants. It is unlikely that he had it from his head more than a minute or two, but in that time he was stricken with the fever which a few days later caused his death.

Glave, after spending six years in Africa at the state post of Lukolela, returned in safety to his native land. After some years he revisited the scene of his earlier labors, entering the continent on the east coast and passing in safety to Matadi. While waiting for a steamer he was making a short journey on the river in a canoe. His head was exposed for a mere instant to the sun, and Glave was shortly a dead man.

One who has been on three different occasions in the Congo once remarked to me that he could see no reason for the strange and frightful modes of suicide adopted by Europeans who wished to end their lives. All that would be necessary is to seat oneself upon a chair or stool in the open sunshine for a brief period. Yet the Bantu goes out every day with no hat upon his head, and with no apparent bad results. And when he has the fever one of his quickest means of restoration is to seat himself in the open sunshine. Of course, the Bantu does not have the fever as frequently or as severely as the white man.