The story of the Congo Free State

by Henry Wellington Wack

The third expedition, judged by results, hardly deserves to be called such. It consisted of only two Belgians (MM. Burdo and Roger), and the health of the former breaking down immediately on his arrival at Zanzibar, he was obliged to return home at once. War was now being waged between the chiefs Mirambo and Simba; but though each of the contestants was friendly to the Belgians, the conflict rendered their position very precarious. In the circumstances, MM. Cambier and Popelin judged it expedient to divide their forces, so as to ensure efficient protection for the newly founded station at Karema, and the route thence to the coast.

While matters were standing thus, a fourth expedition arrived, the strongest and best equipped yet sent out by Belgium, commanded by Captain Ramaeckers, an experienced African traveller, skilled in native wiles, who had been more successful in his dealing with the black man than any other Belgian. Captain Ramaeckers was ably seconded by MM. Becker and De Leu, lieutenants in the Belgian Artillery, and an expert photographer. The moment of the arrival of this expedition was opportune, for the difficulties of MM. Cambier and Popelin, due to the war between the natives, increased daily, and they were in a bad way. Captain Ramaeckers made all possible haste to succour them, and after a perilous journey succeeded in joining his colleagues on the banks of Lake Tanganyika; but he lost by death on the way his brave lieutenant, De Leu, a victim of malarial fever, and the health of the photographer failed so completely that it was found necessary to send him home. Captain Ramaeckers now took over the command from Lieutenant Cambier, who had carried on the work in Central Africa for three years, and was now desirous of returning to Europe. In that period Cambier had contrived to achieve much valuable work, of which the worth is more apparent to-day than it was in December, 1880, when he resigned his command. But in estimating its value, then or now, the enormous difficulties under which he laboured should never for a moment be lost sight of. These difficulties were so great as hardly to admit of exaggeration. Language is inadequate to convey any just conception of the trackless deserts, impenetrable forests, and malarial swamps, through which the explorers’ route lay, complicated by two friendly but warring tribes, each suspicious of the strangers’ relations with the other.

Popelin and Ramaeckers, unlike Cambier, were not destined to see their native land again. Eighteen months after the departure of Cambier, Popelin died of malarial fever, and a short while after Ramaeckers also, from a like cause. In spite of these terrible losses, the Belgian station continued to exist, and even prospered in its work. The command now devolved upon Lieutenant Storms, then on his way to Central Africa to establish a new station on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika. When Storms arrived and took command he chose as the site of the new station a spot called Mpala, immediately opposite Karema. The chief of the district, who himself bore the name of Mpala, proved friendly to the expedition, and the new station soon became as important as Karema itself. So great was the influence exerted by Storms over Mpala that that chief, when dying, left the appointment of his successor to be determined by the Belgian officer. Storms showed himself a clever diplomatist, and during his two-and-a-half-years’ control did much to consolidate the work of his predecessors.

So far, we have seen, these expeditions were exclusively Belgian. They owed their inception to King Leopold, by far the larger part of the heavy expense they entailed was met out of his Majesty’s private purse, and the personnel was Belgian almost to a man. Humanitarian in their object, the expeditions had been conducted so humanely that no injury had resulted to any one for which the expeditions could be blamed. With the exception of the two English elephant-keepers, murdered by Arab brigands, the loss of life was wholly Belgian, resulting in every case from the trying climate of Equatorial Africa.

An Intrepid Journalist.

But before any Belgian expedition had started, Henry M. Stanley, the great Anglo-American traveller, had penetrated Africa as far as the mouth of the Congo, and had startled the world by the information contained in his letters addressed thence to the New York Herald and the London Daily Telegraph. In glowing and incisive language Stanley demonstrated the future commercial importance of the superb Congo River, and significantly pointed out that, so far, no European power, except Portugal, had put forth any claim to its control—a claim which England, France, and the United States had refused to recognise.

This pregnant statement excited widespread remark, but the King of the Belgians was alone in acting upon the startling information. His Majesty invited Mr. Stanley to Brussels to confer with some distinguished geographers, merchants, and financiers; and out of that meeting grew the Comité d’Études du Haut-Congo, to which reference has been made in an earlier chapter. Soon after, however, the name of this body was changed to that of the International Association of the Congo. Mr. Stanley was invited to enter its service, and to establish along the Congo a series of stations, designed as bases for future operations, humanitarian and commercial, i. e., suppression of the slave trade and securing the commerce of the Congo country.

How Stanley accepted that invitation, and carried out the mission which the King of the Belgians entrusted to him, is almost as well known as the story of the same intrepid traveller’s discovery of Dr. Livingstone a few years before. With only ten companions (five Belgian, two English, two Danish, and one French), Stanley left Europe in January, 1879. At Zanzibar he hoped to be reinforced by at least some of those who had been associated with him on his previous journey. Meanwhile the steamboats En Avant and Royal, the twin-screw steamer La Belgique, one-screw barge Young Africa, and two steel lighters, were sent direct from Belgium to the mouth of the Congo, there to await Stanley’s coming. Stanley recruited a hundred and forty blacks (Askaris and Kabindas), to say nothing of carriers, whom he obtained as he required them during his progress along the Congo.

Difficult Pioneering.

The first station to be founded was Vivi, and six months were spent in fortifying it. Then came the construction of a road from Vivi to Isanghila—fifty miles higher up the river—required for the conveyance of the steamers in section, stores, merchandise, etc. This proved a formidable task and took a whole year to accomplish. But Stanley and his men proved equal to it, and another station was founded at Isanghila. At that station, fortunately, the Congo was again found to be navigable, and Stanley pushed on to Manyanga by boat, where he founded a third station. It was while at Manyanga that Stanley first learned of M. de Brazza’s having set up the French flag on the northern shore of Stanley Pool, and calling it Brazzaville, a fact previously referred to.