One phase of the labours of the American Presbyterian Congo Mission discloses the bondage of the Congo native to the Witch Doctor. The moment he feels sick he rushes to the sorcerer, usually a bedaubed barbarian who practices weird and mysterious rites, and who generally succeeds in killing off his patient. More than ninety per cent of the pagan population of Africa not only acknowledges but fears the powers of the Witch Doctor. Only two-fifths of one per cent are under Christian medical treatment. The Presbyterian Missionaries, therefore, from the very outset have sought to bring the native into the ken of the white physician. It is a slow process. One almost unsurmountable obstacle lies in the uncanny grip that the "medicine man" wields in all the tribes.
It is largely due to the missionaries that the practice of handshaking has been introduced in the Congo. Formerly the custom was to clap hands when exchanging greetings. The blacks saw the Anglo-Saxons grasp hands when they met and being apt imitators in many things, they started to do likewise. One of the first things that impressed me in Africa was the extraordinary amount of handshaking that went on when the people met each other even after a separation of only half an hour.
VI
I had originally planned to leave Africa at St. Paul de Loanda in Portuguese West Africa, where Thomas F. Ryan and his Belgian associates have acquired the new oil wells and set up still another important outpost of our overseas financial venturing. But so much time had been consumed in reaching Tshikapa that I determined to return to Kinshassa, go on to Matadi, and catch the boat for Europe at the end of August.
There were two ways of getting back to Kabambaie. One was to go in an automobile through the jungle, and the other by boat down the Kasai. Between Kabambaie and Djoko Punda there is practically no navigation on account of the succession of dangerous rapids. Since my faith in the jitney was still impaired I chose the river route and it gave me the most stirring of all my African experiences. The two motor boats at Tshikapa were out of commission so I started at daybreak in a whale-boat manned by forty naked native paddlers.
The fog still hung over the countryside and the scene as we got under way was like a Rackham drawing of goblins and ghosts. I sat forward in the boat with the ranks of singing, paddling blacks behind me. From the moment we started and until I landed, the boys kept up an incessant chanting. One of their number sat forward and pounded the iron gunwale with a heavy stick. When he stopped pounding the paddlers ceased their efforts. The only way to make the Congo native work is to provide him with noise.
All day we travelled down the river through schools of hippopotami, some of them near enough for me to throw a stone into the cavernous mouths. The boat capita told me that he would get to Kabambaie by sundown. Like the average New York restaurant waiter, he merely said what he thought his listener wanted to hear. I fervently hoped he was right because we not only had a series of rapids to shoot up-river, but at Kabambaie is a seething whirlpool that has engulfed hundreds of natives and their boats. At sunset we had only passed through the first of the troubled zones. Nightfall without a moon found me still moving, and with the swirling eddy far ahead.
I had many close calls during the war. They ranged from the first-line trenches of France, Belgium, and Italy to the mine fields of the North Sea while a winter gale blew. I can frankly say that I never felt such apprehension as on the face of those surging waters, with black night and the impenetrable jungle about me. The weird singing of the paddlers only heightened the suspense. I thought that every tight place would be my last. Finally at eight o'clock, and after it seemed that I had spent years on the trip, we bumped up against the shore of Kabambaie, within a hundred feet of the fatal spot.
The faithful Moody, who preceded me, had revived life in the jonah jitney and at dawn the next day we started at full speed and reached Djoko Punda by noon. The "Madeleine" was waiting for me with steam up, for I sent a runner ahead. I had ordered Nelson back from Kabambaie because plenty of servants were available there. He spent his week of idleness at Djoko Punda in exploring every food known to the country. At one o'clock I was off on the first real stage of my homeward journey. The swift current made the downward trip much faster than the upward and I was not sorry.
As we neared Basongo the captain came to me and said, "I see two Americans standing on the bank. Shall I take them aboard?"