It will be seen that one to-day may go easily throughout the enormous area of the Congo Free State without serious hardship and really with much comfort. But, as a matter of fact, there are almost no true travelers in the area. One can hardly call a state official, on his way to his post, or going from place to place in the performance of his duty, a traveler. Nor is a company agent, making his tour for the collection of rubber, or for inspection of property, exactly one’s ideal of a traveler. Nor is the missionary, coming back from furlough or going home invalided, a traveler. The number of actual travelers in the Congo at any time is small. My photographer and myself, I think, might be called travelers.
We spent fifty-three weeks in the Congo Free State. During the period of time that we were there we learned that Mr. A. Henry Savage-Landor spent a few days in the High Ubangi. He came in from the north, visited only one station of a company, and then went out again. Mr. Harrison, who, some little time ago, took a group of pygmies from the High Ituri forest to London, was again in the country, though he had left his little people behind him.
At the same time, an English gentleman was hunting the okapi (that curious antelope) in the same district. When we were coming out and were delayed at Leopoldville, a Capt. Daniels of the English navy arrived at Leopoldville, having made his way across the continent from the east coast. At Bolengi we met a Mr. Creighton, an American clergyman, who had made the way so far from Mombasa. Mr. Verner, bringing back his native group from the St. Louis exposition, was in the Congo during the same period.
On the steamer coming down from Stanley Falls, we had for fellow passengers, M. and Mme. Cabra. M. Cabra was a royal commissioner, having been sent to the country by Leopold himself, to make a careful examination of conditions throughout the whole upper region of the Ituri and Congo rivers. M. and Mme. Cabra entered Africa at Mombasa; they had traversed on foot the forty days of journey I have referred to, but as the purposes of their investigation required them to zigzag back and forth instead of following a direct path, they had occupied a much longer period of time and covered much more distance. Eighteen months on their long journey, they both of them reached Matadi in good health, and Mme. Cabra is probably the first lady to have crossed the African continent in the equatorial regions from ocean to ocean.
Now, these were the only travelers besides one Frenchman, who was a mystery, of whom we heard or whom we met in our fifty-three weeks in Congo experience. It is unlikely that there were many others. The stranger in the Congo is talked of everywhere. We were not within hundreds of miles of Henry Savage-Landor, or Mr. Harrison, or the okapi hunter, but we heard of their existence. Even if the given list is but the half of Congo travelers during the year, it can be seen that the real traveler is a rarity within the limits of the state.
IX.
January 28, 1907.
IN the romantic history of African exploration and development there is no more interesting chapter than that relating to the Congo. In 1854 Livingstone finished a great journey into the continent; in it he had visited a portion of the district drained by the Kasai River. In his final journey we find him again within the district of what to-day forms the Congo Free State; he discovered Lake Moero in 1867 and Lake Bangwelo in 1868; he visited the southern portion of Tanganika in 1869, and followed the course of the Congo to Nyangwe.
At that time no one knew, few if any suspected, that the river he was following had connection with the Congo. Livingstone himself believed that it formed the uppermost part of the Nile, and in all the district where he saw it, its course from south to north would naturally lead to that opinion. It was his heart’s desire to trace the further course and determine whether it were really the Nile or a part of some other great river. Death prevented his answering the question.
Backed by the New York Herald and the Daily Telegraph, Stanley, on November 17, 1874, struck inland from the eastern coast of Africa, with the purpose of determining the question as to the final course of the great river flowing northward, discovered by his missionary predecessor. He circumnavigated Lake Victoria, discovered Lake Albert Edward, and made the first complete examination of the shore of Tanganika. He reached the Lualaba—Livingstone’s north-flowing stream,—and, embarking on its waters, devoted himself to following it to its ending.