“Mampoko, October 9, 1903.”
We have dealt at length with the above case because it is considered by the Consul himself as being one of the utmost importance, and because he relies upon this single case for accepting as accurate all the other declarations made to him by natives.
“In the one case I could alone personally investigate,” he says,[98] “that of the boy II., I found this accusation proved on the spot without seemingly a shadow of doubt existing as to the guilt of the accused sentry.”
And further on:
“I had not time to do more than visit the one village of R——, and in that village I had only time to investigate the charge brought by II.”[99]
And elsewhere:
“It was obviously impossible that I should ... verify on the spot, as in the case of the boy, the statements they made. In that one case the truth of the charges preferred was amply demonstrated.”[100]
It is also to this case that he alludes in his letter of the 12th September, 1903, to the Governor-General, where he says:
“When speaking to M. le Commandant Stevens at Coquilhatville on the 10th instant, when the mutilated boy Epondo stood before us as an evidence of the deplorable state of affairs I reprobated, I said, ‘I do not accuse an individual, I accuse a system.’”
It is only natural to conclude that if the rest of the evidence in the Consul’s Report is of the same value as that furnished to him in this particular, it cannot possibly be regarded as conclusive. And it is obvious that in those cases in which the Consul, as he himself admits, did not attempt to verify the assertions of the natives, these assertions are worth, if possible, still less.