The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

Thirty years ago what is now the Congo Free State was a wild tangle of luxuriant tropical growth through which hordes of black savages roamed, fought, and practised their unspeakable barbarities, living almost entirely upon the spontaneous products of Nature. The white magician has waved his wand and the scene is transformed. In, and far around, each of the numerous governmental stations or posts, life and property are as secure now as in any part of Europe or America. The spade and the hoe have displaced the throwing-spear and poisoned arrow in the hands of the native. Where the shy antelope or spring-bok browsed, remote from human intrusion, the soil is now turned up by the plough, and devoted to the growing of coffee, cocoa, tea (of the Assam variety) and various condiments, cinnamon, pepper, ginger, nutmegs, cloves, vanilla, etc. The establishments for the breeding of cattle, horses, and donkeys, particularly in the Enclave of Lado, in Ruzizi-Kivu, Equateur, Bangala, and Lualaba-Kassai, are numerous and increasing. Latest accounts to hand state that they exceed seventy. Many of the natives display considerable aptitude in learning how to tend herds of cattle. Great expense has been incurred by the State and by various companies in the purchase and importation of pedigree horses and cattle. The animals have been selected from the best European stocks by experts, and assigned to various breeding establishments throughout the country. The enterprise has proved extremely successful, the number of cattle of European origin now in the State being no fewer than 4500, with sixty horses, and nearly as many donkeys.

In following agricultural employments the natives receive liberal encouragement from the Government. The State offers rewards for the cultivation of coffee and cocoa. At all suitable stations is a coffee and cocoa nursery, established by the State; that is to say, the State has supplied the necessary seeds, and contracts to allow an indemnity for each shrub on its attaining two feet in height, and to pay the native half the value of its produce less the cost of transport to Europe.

Coffee.

Coffee has been found to flourish most in the districts of Equateur and Aruwimi, and in the zone of Stanley Falls. Liberica, Arabian, and Guadaloupe are the varieties which have been selected as suited to the Congo soil and climate. The number of coffee plants has increased from 61,517 in 1894, to 1,996,200 in 1902. Cocoa plants numbered no fewer than 298,003 in 1902, an increase of 284,136 in ten years!

In 1899 the State erected a factory for the preparation of coffee at Kinshassa, and adopted several new methods, improvements upon the practice in vogue in countries where coffee has been cultivated for generations. After being dried at the plantations, the coffee is placed in sacks and sent in State steamers to Stanley Pool, and thence to the Kinshassa factory. So good is the quality of Congo coffee that in 1894 it realised no less than 100 francs per 100 kilogrammes in the open market at Antwerp.

Caoutchouc (rubber), for countless ages wholly a spontaneous product of the forests, every year becomes more and more an object of cultivation. By a decree dated January 5, 1899, it is provided that in all the forests of the domain caoutchouc trees shall be planted in the proportion of 150 feet to the ton of caoutchouc collected during the same period. By a subsequent decree, dated six months later, the number of caoutchouc trees to be planted for each ton of caoutchouc collected was raised from 150 feet to 500 feet. The enforcement of these decrees is attended to by a staff of foresters, consisting of eight controllers and twelve sub-controllers, working under a chief inspector.

Shelling Coffee, Stanleyville.

Collecting Rubber.

Until prohibited by State decree, the method of collecting caoutchouc practised by the natives was to make an incision in the plant (liana), and allow the fluid to run into a jar. Sometimes they allowed it to run into their hands, and afterwards smeared it over their bodies, and in that manner it was conveyed to market, where it was rubbed off with sand. It was an exceedingly wasteful method, or rather want of method, for the plant thus drawn from was necessarily killed. Only the prodigious quantity of plants existing on the Upper Congo and its tributaries has saved it from extinction. Now caoutchouc is harvested by extracting the fluid from the stem of the plant in a way that does it no injury, a scientific yet simple operation easily performed by women and children. The industry has assumed enormous proportions. The number of caoutchouc plants put into the ground by companies and by the State are valued at five million francs. The rubber annually produced in the world amounts at present to something over 30,000 tons, of which the Congo Free State exports 5000 tons.