The Congo diamond fields are merely a part of the Forminiere treasure-trove. Over in Angola the concession is eight times larger in area, the stones are bigger, and with adequate exploitation should surpass the parent production in a few years. Six mines are already in operation and three more have been staked out. The Angola mines are alluvial and are operated precisely like those in Belgian territory. The managing engineer is Glenn H. Newport, who was with Decker in the fatal encounter with Batchoks. The principal post of this area is Dundu, which is about forty miles from the Congo border.
As I looked at these mines with their thousands of grinning natives and heard the rattle of gravel in the "jigs" my mind went back to Kimberley and the immense part that its glittering wealth played in determining the economic fate of South Africa. Long before the gold "rush" opened up in the Rand, the diamond mines had given the southern section of the continent a rebirth of prosperity. Will the Congo mines perform the same service for the Congo? In any event they will be a determining factor in the future world diamond output.
No record of America in the Congo would be complete without a reference to the high part that our missionaries have played in the spiritualization of the land. The stronghold of our religious influence is also the Upper Kasai Basin. In 1890 two devoted men, Samuel N. Lapsley, a white clergyman, and William H. Sheppard, a Negro from Alabama, established the American Presbyterian Congo Mission at Luebo which is about one hundred miles from Tshikapa straight across country.
The valley of the Sankuru and Kasai Rivers is one of the most densely populated of all the Belgian Congo. It is inhabited by five powerful tribes—the Baluba, the Bena Lulua, the Bakuba, the Bakete and the Zappozaps, and their united population is one-fifth of that of the whole Colony. Hence it was a fruitful field for labour but a hard one. From an humble beginning the work has grown until there are now seven important stations with scores of white workers, hundreds of native evangelists, one of the best equipped hospitals in Africa, and a manual training school that is teaching the youth of the land how to become prosperous and constructive citizens. Under its inspiration the population of Luebo has grown from two thousand in 1890 to eighteen thousand in 1920.
WASHING OUT GRAVEL
DONALD DOYLE (LEFT) AND MR. MARCOSSON
The two fundamental principles underlying this splendid undertaking have been well summed up as follows: "First, the attainment of a Church supported by the natives through the thrift and industry of their own hands. The time is past when we may merely teach the native to become a Christian and then leave him in his poverty and squalor where he can be of little or no use to the Church. Second, the preparation of the native to take the largest and most influential position possible in the development of the Colony. Practically the only thing open to the Congolese is along the mechanical and manual lines."
One of the noblest actors in this American missionary drama was the late Rev. W. M. Morrison, who went out to the Congo in 1896. Realizing that the most urgent need was a native dictionary, he reduced the Baluba-Lulua language to writing. In 1906 he published a Dictionary and Grammar which included the Parables of Christ, the Miracles, the Epistles to the Romans in paraphrase. He also prepared a Catechism based on the Shorter and Child's Catechisms. This gave the workers in the field a definite instrument to employ, and it has been a beneficent influence in shaping the lives and morals of the natives.