A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State

by Marcus R. P. Dorman

CHAPTER VI.

The Upper Ubangi.—Banzyville to Yakoma.

Banzyville has been built on a beautiful site at a double bend of the river. Opposite is the French Post of Mobaie and between them roars a rapid. The country on each side is hilly, while the soil is rocky, great boulders of granite and quartz lying about in isolated grandeur. We reach the Post on the morning of September 26th and are met by Captain Auita, an Italian, who is the Zone Chief here. The buildings are arranged on two sides of a square, the other two being formed by the river as it turns to the left, and the open space is covered with gravel which makes a welcome change from sand and clay while the house placed at our disposal looks particularly inviting after a week of tents and the small launch. Everything is wet through and has to be spread out on the gravel to dry under nature's great fire. Unfortunately some of the skins, which perforce have been left in cases for a week, under water one minute and baked in the sun the next, have hopelessly rotted and have to be thrown away. Next morning we interviewed numbers of native Chiefs who were all very anxious to exchange lances and other curiosities for European clothes. All were content with «Bulamatadi,» although some grumbled at the necessity to find porters and paddlers.

This is evidently one of the most populous districts in the whole Congo, for on all sides, both at the river edge and on the hill tops, are large villages consisting of tent-shaped huts and «shimbeks,» or square open sheds, under which the natives sit and sleep most of the day. Besides rubber, great quantities of rice are grown here, the plantations extending parallel to the river for more than two miles. Here men, women, and children are at work and those near the road come forward, give a military salute and shake hands, a custom peculiar to this part, for hitherto the women have not saluted and only the chiefs offered the hand. Many of the people have thin lips and Semitic noses and most are well made. As usual, if one meets a husband and wife, the former strolls ahead with a spear or stick, while the latter follows carrying a baby riding on one of her hips, tied on by her wrap of cloth, and with a heavy load of wood or food-stuff on her head. We cross the river in the evening and dine with Captain Meilleur at Mobaie. The French villages are identical with those on the State side, but the natives are, if possible, still more idle.

Next morning much rubber is brought into Banzyville. Strings of natives, each with a little basket-full of this substance, march into the square and sit down in lines on the gravel. The baskets are then weighed on a yard arm and the weights entered in a book by Captain Auita until a record of the whole has been made when the chattering throng departs to a shed near by where five cooks have been hard at work preparing dinner for them. The natives here are paid in cloth at the rate of 50 or 60 centimes a kilogramme according to the quality of the rubber and although each man is supposed to supply only one kilogramme a month some of the villages here send in more than a ton in that time.

Mr. Fernaka, the second in command, arrived on the 28th after marching for thirty days in the interior over unexplored ground. He said it was mostly marsh land containing a few villages from which the inhabitants, seeing the white man approach with his soldiers, fled into the bush. At first indeed the natives are always fearful of the whites, but in a short time are willing to trade and soon become very friendly. The native, in fact, quickly acquires absolute confidence in Europeans and his fear at first is, obviously, only the fear of the unknown. It is rather amusing to see the children in villages where few white men have penetrated, run shrieking with terror to their mothers when a strange looking person, with a white face and clothes appears. At the sound of the launch whistle also many children run away. One of the soldiers, a sergeant of some years' standing who accompanied Mr. Fernaka on his arduous march, unfortunately contracted dysentery and arrived at Banzyville only to die. We attend the funeral, the absolute simplicity of the ceremony being very impressive. All the troops here, perhaps seventy or eighty marched with reversed arms to the cemetery after the buglers sounding the Last Post and lined up opposite the grave. The order was given to present arms, the coffin was lowered, each person present threw a handful of earth into the grave and all was over. Far into the night, however, one could hear the mournful dirge the soldiers were chanting for their dead comrade. Hunting here is difficult although game abounds, the grass being high enough to conceal antelopes and everything else except elephants. After a walk through rough country and water for six hours without success, I was glad to get into my hammock and was jogged back home by perspiring natives, who took turns to carry their burden and changed about every ten minutes. Altogether the hammock is not comfortable, and it is obviously useless hunting here until the grass is burnt. Next day, being very tired and stiff, I pass the time looking through Civilisation in Congoland again. Having now visited many of the places mentioned in that book, the difficulties which beset a writer who publishes a work on a country he has never seen, become very apparent. In fact, it gives no more idea of the condition of the Congo than a file of the Police News would convey an impression of English civilisation. When one has visited some hundreds of villages and seen perhaps a million of natives, most of whom seem cheerful and contented, one marvels indeed how such absolutely false reports of the condition of the country can have originated. On the other hand, it is impossible to travel several thousands of miles in the Congo—especially in the unfrequented parts—without constantly wondering what is the extraordinary power which enables a few hundred white men, not only to govern as many million blacks, but to open up and develop a country as large as the continent of Europe, which a few years ago was absolutely unknown.

We can dismiss at once the idea that the native is suppressed by military despotism, for the Posts are isolated and the number of troops in them merely sufficient to guard property and stores, that is to say, to fulfil the duties of policemen in England. At any moment the thousands of natives who live in or near the Posts, could overwhelm these small forces long before help could arrive from the next Government Station, in many cases a week's journey distant. The fact that they do not do so, is at least negative evidence that the white men do not ill treat the people. There is however, much positive evidence that the native has, not only a great respect, but also an affection for his new rulers, and it is not difficult to understand the reason, when we compare his fate before the advent of the Europeans with his condition at present.

In each village was a Chief or Chiefs, freemen and slaves who passed their lives hunting and fighting other tribes. The sole property of the Chiefs and freemen were their huts, canoes, and slaves, and the rude instruments they used in war and hunting. The unfortunate slaves were bought and sold, captured in war and were often killed and eaten. One slave was worth so many goats, lances, or knives, and one large canoe would buy several women. Legislation rested with the Chiefs and trial by ordeal was common, but always so arranged that the result could be controlled by the judge. This is not the place however, to describe these interesting, if horrible practices.

Now at present the people are rich beyond the wildest dreams of their ancestors for the value of the property of the great Chiefs has greatly increased, since they have dealt with Europeans. Again the Chief of a small village containing 1000 men supplies 1000 kilogrammes of rubber each month to the State for 50 centimes a kilo. To collect this amount takes two or three days; each year therefore the village receives £240 for collecting a substance of no value at all to the natives whose daily routine in the meantime is scarcely affected at all. The natives used ivory chiefly to make war horns, but some of the Chiefs had so much that they constructed fences of fine points round their mud huts little thinking that in the white man's country, those useless tusks would be worth a small mountain of salt. Now they exchange them for clothes, cloth, salt, and other useful commodities. The lucky owner of a canoe, it is true, can no longer buy three or four slaves with it, but he can use it to transport produce or to catch fish, for which he is well paid. Again compare the lot of the slave in the past with his present condition. He was liable to the most terrible fate at any moment; now he can enter the army, work in the plantations or remain safely in his village and do a few hours' work each month. There is however, another force acting which we should hardly expect would affect the mind of a savage. He is greatly influenced by a desire to ascend the social ladder at the summit of which, is of course, the white man, and anyone having direct dealings with him, at once knows himself to be superior to the naked cannibal of the forest. The servant, or «boy,» of the white man, holds a high rank and considers himself to be quite another species of man than his cousin, who is still uncivilised. So also the soldiers and workers in the plantations, who come into daily contact with the officials. All the most intelligent and ambitious natives are thus drawn away from their primitive condition of life and become attached to their masters, who give them cloth to wear and beads with which to beautify themselves. The most important Chiefs are as anxious indeed to appear like Europeans, as a prosperous native of Sierra Leone, is to wear patent boots and carry a silk umbrella. There is one near here named Bayer, a young man of much intelligence and business capacity, who has built himself a brick house, dresses like a European, and is a proud man when he is asked to smoke a cigar on the verandah of the mess. The Chiefs are, however, never asked to eat with the Europeans, a distinction which is both necessary and wise.