The Bantu suffers much, however, from sleeping-sickness. For a long time it was believed that this strange disease was peculiar to the dark populations of Africa. The disease formerly was local, and while frightful in its ravages, was not a serious matter. To-day, however, it is extending up and down the whole length of the main river and throughout the area drained by many of its main tributaries.
In its approach it is slow and insidious. The saddest cases are those where the victim attacked was notably intelligent and quick. The subject becomes at first a little moody, and from time to time has outbursts of petulance and anger out of proportion to the exciting cause. These outbursts become more and more common, and assume the character of true mania, during which the person may attack those around him, even though they are his best and dearest friends. It is frequently necessary to tie him, in order to prevent injury to others. Presently the person is affected with stupor, shows a tendency to sleep, even at his work; this increases until at last he is practically sleeping, or in a comatose condition, all the time. In this latter stage of the disease he loses flesh with great rapidity, and presently is naught but skin and bones. At last death takes him, after he has been useless to himself and others for a long time.
The sleeping-sickness is not confined to the Congo Free State, and at the present time its ravages are felt severely in the British district of Uganda. The disease has been investigated by learned commissions, but no satisfactory treatment, at least for an advanced stage of the trouble, has been yet discovered.
There is a tendency among physicians to connect the transmission of the sleeping-sickness with, the tsetse fly. It is, “of course,” a germ disease—such being at the present all the fashion. A medical friend in New York tells me that the Japanese have made recent important investigations of the sickness, and that their line of treatment gives greater promise of success than any other. Latterly the disease has attacked white people, and a number of missionaries have died from it or been furloughed home for treatment.
Whole districts of Bantu have been depopulated. We were shown the site of a Catholic mission until lately highly prosperous; the place has been deserted, all the natives under the influence of the mission having died of the sleeping-sickness.
Malaria, hæmaturia, sun fevers, and sleeping-sickness are the most fearful scourges which the white settler in the Congo faces.
We could, of course, extend the list of strange and dreadful diseases, but have said enough to show that every white man who goes into the Congo country does so at a serious risk. No one is quite immune, and the number who even seem to be so is small. No one is ever quite well, and every one is chronically in a state of physical disorganization.
The climate and the actual diseases are bad enough. They perhaps would lose a portion of their terror if the food supply were adequate, wholesome, and nutritious. Even the missionaries use little native food. The state officer and trader use practically none. The chopbox is an institution of the country. Its simplest expression is found at the trading-post of some company where but a single agent is in residence. Once in three months the steamer of his company brings him his chopbox outfit. There are usually two long wooden boxes, one of which contains a great variety of tinned meats, fish, vegetables, and fruit. I never had the least idea until my African experience how many things were put in tins. The second box contains flour, oil, vinegar, salt, and spices. The quantity is held to be sufficient for the three months. In addition to the actual food supply, there is a quota of wine in demijohns and of gin in square bottles.
No one who has not had the experience can imagine the frightful satiety which comes upon one who has fed for weeks from chopboxes.
It is true that “the boy” does his best to serve a palatable dinner. It is true that sometimes a piece of elephant or hippopotamus, a guinea fowl or grouse, some buffalo or antelope, or fresh fish or fowls are brought in by the natives as gifts or trade. But even with this help the poor company agent has the same food, meal after meal, day after day. Frequently the tinned stuff is old and really unfit for eating; but the quota is none too large for his three months’ period. Sometimes the flour or macaroni is moldy, having been soaked through with water in the hold of a leaky steamer. The food is not attractive nor substantial. The state officer, the company agent, in Central Africa, is underfed and badly nourished.