During my trip I must have employed over 1200 porters. I can only say I never came across a more cheerful, well-disposed set of men. I never had the least trouble with them, though asking them to march 30 and 40 miles a day. How often I thought of my woes and worries in British Central Africa, never knowing how many porters would run away each night, though only marching ten miles a day! Had all the accounts of ill-treatment and non-payment been true, would men have come in so readily and worked for me as these carriers did? Many an hour at night I used to spend getting them to talk about the country, its ways, and any grievances. I found, naturally, two or three officers who were evidently disliked (no doubt I will be added to that list after our long marches); but, on the other hand, they talked of many officers as their “white fathers.” As for the way in which the Belgians have opened out the country, it is wonderful. The posts are now all well-built brick houses, and in a few months’ time most of the barracks will be similar; excellent roads connect many of the posts, while all sorts of vegetables and fruit are being grown, cattle and sheep also being introduced in many parts. Though I was told in Khartoum by several of our officers who had been stationed on the frontier how well the Lado Enclave was run, I was quite astonished at such progress. I am glad to see my views are shared by Major Gibbons and Captain Bell, both of whom have had chances of seeing life inland from the Nile.
I met during my wanderings several English and American traders having concessions both in Uganda and the Congo. These men have to visit all the villages. They all said the same thing—that there was nothing wrong with the Government of the Enclave. I also had a long and interesting talk with Father Maguire, of the Roman Catholic mission station at Amadi. He spoke most warmly in praise of the work done by the Belgians in such a few years. He said: “Think of what this country was only a few years ago, overrun with Dervishes, decimated by the slave-dealers, the natives all cannibals—and now you walk in here with only an umbrella as a protection.”
I can only add that I admire the excellent work being done by such men as Commissioner General George Witerwulge, Commandants Ravello (Lado), Menwnaer (Redjaf), Wacquez (Buta), Holmes (Dungu), Grazione (Lodka), and all the many other officers, too numerous to mention, who are quietly working hard, day after day, opening out those vast regions to civilisation; and I shall never forget the kindness met with at the hands of all, from the Nile to Boma.
I must apologise for trespassing on your valuable space, but if I were to try and refute many of the statements I have seen in print I should have to trespass considerably more.
Yours truly,
James J. Harrison.
Bachelors’ Club, London,
June 6th.
P. S.—Since writing the above I see in to-day’s Morning Post quotations from some English trader in Matadi. He says: “From all I hear, things up country are worse than ever. In the Mayumbe country, behind Boma even, the State has begun collecting rubber by force from the natives.”
As I happened to travel home on the same boat as Mr. Ave, an American missionary, who has for some years been in charge of this Mayumbe district, his statements to me may be of interest. Mr. Ave said all these reports were untrue; that the district was governed by an officer who was most kind and considerate in all his dealings with the natives; that he had carefully readjusted the taxation so as to fall as fairly as possible with regard to villages and population of same; and that the officer was universally respected by all the natives as a kind and just man. The same Morning Post article seems to be slightly inconsistent. It quotes one Equatorial missionary as saying that “the white man will be swept out of the Congo and a revolution will take place within two years,” while farther on it quotes the Matadi trader “as deprecating the founding of a new post for 1,000 soldiers at Bomasundi.”
Surely, if the first assumption is correct, the wisdom of the second is sound. I am glad to find since my return that few people take notice of or believe those wonderful statements, copied from a more wonderful paper—the West African Mail.
This is the way Major James Harrison a few days later demolishes a side issue raised by Mr. Morel. The letter is addressed to the Editor of the Morning Post (London), and appeared in that journal of June 25, 1904: