On the 15th we reach Yakussu, where is a Mission Station of the English Baptists. As I cannot go ashore, the missionary, Mr. Stapleton, comes on board and we have an interesting chat. He has known the Bangala District for many years and has seen the riverside population diminish very much during the last fifteen years. This he ascribes partly to the Sleeping Sickness and partly to emigration to the State Posts. At first it was very difficult for the people to raise enough food for themselves and for the soldiers in the Posts, and to avoid the hard work, many accepted service under the State. Here however, near Stanley Falls, there is plenty of food and the people have no difficulty in providing for their own wants and in supplying the State Posts as well. He thinks that after the cruelty of the Arabs, the rule of the white man appears as heaven to the native. All are therefore contented and happy, and as there is very little Sleeping Sickness, the population is increasing. The Mission boys are taught to be carpenters, masons and brick makers, for food is so plentiful that there is no need to establish plantations. The chief grievance of Mr. Stapleton is, that the Government will not permit the missionaries to settle where they wish and will not grant them land. Several other missionaries have also complained of this, but some districts are certainly not civilised at present, and it would be dangerous for any white man to live in them without a military guard. It thus happens that while there are a great number of Mission Stations along the Congo in the part where the population has diminished greatly, there is not a single Mission on the State side of the Ubangi river where the people are very numerous.
We arrived at Stanleyville in the afternoon. The town is situated on the north bank of the river and consists of streets of large well built houses with much space in between which is laid out in gardens. On the opposite bank are the works of the railway to Ponthierville, a number of corrugated iron buildings and a large native village. In front, a hundred yards up the river, the lowest of the Stanley Falls can be seen, the white foam glistening in the sunlight as the water rushes over the rocks. The Commissaire of the District—the Province Orientale—Lieutenant De Neullemeister, kindly lends me a house and acts as my host. Fish is very plentiful here, but a sudden and terrible disease has suddenly carried off most of the goats and chickens and we are therefore, rather short of fresh meat for a few days.
Many of the natives have the Arab type of features and their village is quite Arabian in appearance. They are all very civilised and work well, so that much rubber is collected, although the population about Lake Tanganika is not very dense. The women here are clothed and do not work in the plantations at all.
Next day Lieutenant De Neullemeister and I, cross the river and are met by Mr. Adams, the Director of the Railway Company. We enter a truck and proceed along the new line which plunges into dense forest immediately, turning and twisting in many directions in order to avoid the numerous soft places and ravines and although there are a few steep gradients, most of the way the line runs on fairly level ground. The soil is a kind of ferruginous clay in some places and sandy in others and all the bridges are constructed of wood. Mr. Adams says the natives are good workers and that they have had no trouble with them and very little sickness. The gauge of the line is considerably wider than that of the Matadi-Leopoldville railway and at present about thirty kilometres have been finished the whole passing through thick forest with clearings here and there for the huts of the workmen. The difficulties of construction are very great, but these are being surmounted and the cost of transport of material is enormous, for every steel rail six of which weigh a ton has to be carried from Europe to Matadi by ship, then by the railway to Leopoldville, and then up the river for nearly a thousand miles. The Company has its own private steamer, the Kintamo, a stern wheeler of 500 tons which is the largest vessel on the Congo, but like the rest was carried out in sections and put together and launched at Leopoldville. The construction of this railway will thus be costly, and it is doubtful if the amount of produce carried will be sufficient for some years to pay a dividend. The advantages of it will however, be very great, for at present the falls render the river useless for navigation, and everything has to be carried round by hand. Everywhere indeed, there is evidence that the State not only spends enormous sums in opening up the country, but welcomes the formation of private companies who will help them in their gigantic undertaking. It is difficult to realise that probably no man, white or black, has ever set foot in the forest a few hundred yards away, and yet we are travelling smoothly along a steel railroad through a tractless desert of trees propelled by a modern steam locomotive. The line does not pass near a single native village, for this part is not thickly populated and the only creatures whose paths are interrupted, are the elephants, buffaloes and wild pigs. On our return we visit the house of Mr. Adams, a solid structure of brick and European cement, and the Mess of the thirty or forty whites employed on the line who live here very well for mutton as well as goat can be purchased from the natives. The price of everything which has to be carried from Europe is very high at Stanleyville for the cost of transport is very great. In the afternoon, we make a tour of the town, and as it is impossible to walk, I am conveyed in a kind of bathchair resting on one wheel. One boy goes in front and one behind and when the road is very bad or an obstacle is met, they lift the machine bodily over it. It is however, a bumpy ride, for the roads are very rough and the chair has no springs. We pass the Mess, capable of dining sixty men and visit the prison. This is a brick building arranged as a quadrangle with an exercising yard in the centre. The cells are lofty and airy and only one prisoner occupies each, but many sleep in one dormitory. Everywhere great cleanliness is observed, so that one is not altogether surprised to learn that the mortality due to Sleeping Sickness is very small among the prisoners. Some of them are making mats and baskets in the yard, but most are working on the chain outside. In a separate building, the women, who also wear light chains, are cooking dinner for the prison. Indeed, on the whole the lot of a prisoner in the Congo is better than he would be likely to experience in a native village, with the exception that he is compelled to work. Most of the people are sentenced for theft or violence, but one woman was imprisoned for throwing a solution of pepper into the face of her husband and nearly blinding him. There is a separate room set apart for white prisoners, but it has not yet been used and is at present much more satisfactorily occupied by the instruments of the band of the Force Publique.
Near the Mess we pass the house of Tippo-Tip, a small mud structure with a verandah and a roof of grass. It is not used at all now, but is allowed to remain as an historical monument. Stanley was compelled to negotiate with Tippo in order to avoid a conflict at the time when the State was not sufficiently armed to undertake such a task but since then, Arab rule has been entirely driven from Central Africa. Almost opposite the Falls, a fort is being constructed with a ditch all round. When finished, it will be capable of holding the whole garrison and supplies for eighteen months. It is of course, only constructed as a defence against native attacks and is not built strong enough to resist big gun fire.
The quarters of the Force Publique here are very comfortable. Each man has a room to himself about seven feet square constructed of brick and the sergeants have a small house, each containing two rooms and a verandah. I looked into one or two and they were well arranged. Bed and mosquito curtain, table and chair with a few pictures and ornaments, showed what an advance the native had made in civilisation since he slept in a hut on the mud floor.
Finally we visited the motive power which enables all this to be done, the rubber stores. Here people were busy sorting and packing the precious material into baskets ready to be carried to the Barge which was waiting to sail.