Stanley had much anxiety about the station at Kinshassa, because it was so low-lying, though in every other way convenient. But, strange to say, one of his commandants who was always feverish at Vivi, Manyanga and Leopoldville, escaped without an attack of fever, or any other indisposition, for eighteen months, when stationed at Kinshassa. He was equally anxious about Equator Station, situated as it was directly under the Equator. But the commandants all praise the climate as capital, with plenty of native products at hand, and no need of anything foreign except a little tea and coffee. Of the 29 Europeans in the service of the Congo Free State above Leopoldville, all served their three year term of service except two who were drowned, one who died of sickness and one who resigned on account of severe illness. The inference from these facts is that the nearer the coast the stations are and the more accessible they are by steamers, the better the facilities are for stores of whiskey, brandy and wines, whose free use is an invitation to African sickness. Also, that the further inland one goes the more experience he acquires as to the means of preserving health. Every day’s march inland is a species of acclimatization and a removal from temptation. It is a putting off of ignorance and a putting on of knowledge. Again, the farther up the Congo one goes the more he is freed from the draughts which haunt the
cañons of the lower streams. While Vivi is an ideal spot so far as every visible hygienic consideration goes, it is at the top of an immense funnel with its wide end toward the sea, and the sea breezes sweep up the channel with cumulative vigor, producing a difference of temperature between day and night, or shade and sunshine, which is fatal to the overheated toiler. And the same may be said of Manyanga and Leopoldville. But the wide, lacustrine stretches of Stanley Pool dissipate this deadly draught and equalize the day and night and sunshine and shade temperatures. Thus inner Central Africa becomes even healthier than the coast rind, as it were by natural laws. From which arises the strange anomaly that at the Equator it is not African heat a foreigner need dread so much as African cold.
Yet no precaution against the oppressive heat must be neglected. And this precaution must become a law of life. It must not be spasmodic and remitting, but must be daily and hourly, in fact must be persisted in till the whole habit conforms to the environment, just as at home amid civilization. Captain Benton, after his visit to the Congo, proclaimed beef and beer as the true fortifying agents against the climate. Stanley says nay. Beef, he admits to be all right, in the sense of good, nourishing food. But, not beef alone, so much as that wholesome variety found in well cooked beef, mutton, game, fish and fowl, intermixed with potatoes, turnips, cabbages, beets, carrots, bread, butter, tea and coffee. Beers of civilization are too bilious for Africa, and the distilled spirits are fatally stimulating, leading up to a false courage which may tempt one to too much effort or to dangerous exposure to the sun’s rays. The Duke of Wellington’s health receipt for India is equally good in Africa: “I know of but one receipt for good health in this country, and that is to live moderately, drink little or no wine, use exercise, keep the mind employed, keep in a good humor with the world. The last is the most difficult, for I have often observed, there is scarcely a good-tempered man in India.”
Moderation is the key to health in central Africa. It must be moderation in action, food and drink. Yet there must be engagement of body and mind, great good humor, contentment with surroundings. A lesson in these respects might be learned from the
natives. It is often and truthfully said, that they are the happiest and freest from care of any people on the face of the globe. “Take no thought of the morrow, for ye know not what a day may bring forth,” is the gospel of health among Africans. Prodigal nature helps them to a philosophy, which we may call shiftless ease, happy-go-lucky-effort, or go-as-you-please contentment, but it, nevertheless, is only a crude modification of our more deliberately framed and higher sounding hygienic codes for the preservation of health when we are in their land and subject to their climate and conditions of living and working.
Stanley exemplifies the effect of African cold in another way. In ascending the Congo in his steamers, the entire party enjoyed excellent health, notwithstanding the confinement to the stream and the almost continuous passage through reedy islands and along low, swampy shores. But on the descent, the swifter passage of the boats in the face of the prevailing west winds, and river draughts, produced a chill, during moments of inaction, which prostrated many of the crew, and resulted in serious cases of sickness. Anywhere under shelter, the body continued to perspire insensibly, but the moment it was struck by the wind, there resulted a condition which invariably ended in low fever.
For the ill-health due to African cold, especially where the situation is like that at Vivi, the rainy season is a corrective, because then the cold winds cease and the temperature is uniform. But at the same time, the rainy season is the prelude to sickness in the lower and better protected situations. The Livingstone Congo Mission at Manteka is in a snug nest between high hills, entirely cut off from winds, and surrounded by beautiful gardens of bananas and papaws. Ordinarily it is a healthful spot, and ought to be so always, if freedom from exposure is a law of health. But after the rainy season it is unhealthy. A peculiarly clear atmosphere and a correspondingly hot sun follow the African rains. These cause rapid earth exhalations which rise up around the body like a cloud, and soon deluge the person with perspiration. These exhalations bear the odors of decaying vegetation and become as pernicious as the effluvia from a dung-heap, unless resort is had to the heat of stoves or fire-places to counteract their deadly effects.
Due care in this respect is all that is required to insure immunity from sickness caused by these evaporations.
Even the plateaus are not exempt from fevers. But they for the most part are covered with long grass. Vegetation so luxuriant, falling and decaying, constantly fermenting and fertilizing, would be a source of sickness anywhere. When once they are cleared and planted to corn, wheat or vegetables, this source of sickness will disappear. A well ventilated home, in the midst of a cleared and cultivated plateau, is as healthful in Africa as in any other part of the world. The lessons of health taught daily by the natives ought to be a constant study for foreigners. They fight entirely shy of the cañons of the Congo, whereas at Stanley Pool there is an army of ivory-traders. Then the immediate banks of the river are comparatively deserted, except where the spaces are open. The gorges, and deep valleys of tributaries, are by no means favorite dwelling places, though they are too often the sites of mission-houses and trading posts. The fetishes of the natives could not prevail against disease in the hollows and shaded nooks of their land, nor can the drugs of the white races. The native seeks a cleared space, open to sunshine, elevated so as to insure circulation of air, and for the most part, he looks down on the less favorable abodes of the foreigner.
Stanley summarizes the causes of ill-health in Africa, and arranges them in the order of effectiveness. He gives as the most serious (1) cold draughts. (2) Malarious hollows. (3) Intemperate living. (4) Lack of nourishing food. (5) Physical weakness, indolence of mind and body, general fool-hardiness. One source of encouragement became manifest as years rolled by, and that was the constant diminution of illness among the officials of the Congo Free State. This was in some degree due to the doctrine of “survival of the fittest,” looked upon from a constitutional standpoint, but in the main to the willingness of the survivors to learn, and their learning consisted in putting away the habits they had formed abroad and the assumption of those which fitted their new estate.