THE BELGIAN CONGO
CHAPTER VI—AMERICA IN THE CONGO
I
Go up the Kasai River to Djoko Punda and you believe, despite the background of tropical vegetation and the ever-present naked savage, that for the moment you are back in the United States. You see American jitneys scooting through the jungle; you watch five-ton American tractors hauling heavy loads along the sandy roads; you hear American slang and banter on all sides, and if you are lucky enough to be invited to a meal you get American hot cakes with real American maple syrup. The air tingles with Yankee energy and vitality.
All this means that you have arrived at the outpost of Little America in the Belgian Congo—the first actual signboard of the least known and most picturesque piece of American financial venturing abroad. It has helped to redeem a vast region from barbarism and opened up an area of far-reaching economic significance. At Djoko Punda you enter the domain of the Forminiere, the corporation founded by a monarch and which has a kingdom for a partner. Woven into its story is the romance of a one-time barefoot Virginia boy who became the commercial associate of a king.
What is the Forminiere and what does it do? The name is a contraction of Société Internationale Forestiere & Miniere du Congo. In the Congo, where companies have long titles, it is the fashion to reduce them to the dimensions of a cable code-word. Thus the high-sounding Compagnie Industrielle pour les Transports et Commerce au Stanley Pool is mercifully shaved to "Citas." This information, let me say, is a life-saver for the alien with a limited knowledge of French and whose pronunciation is worse.