The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

Matadi is built on the side of a perpendicular rock, which Richard Harding Davis says is “not so large as Gibraltar, nor so high as the Flatiron Building, but it is a little more steep than either. Three narrow streets lead to its top. They are of flat stones, with cement gutters. The stones radiate the heat of stove-lids. They are worn to a mirror-like smoothness, and from their surface the sun strikes between your eyes, at the pit of your stomach, and blisters the soles of your mosquito boots.”

Matadi is not much more than a railroad terminus. Between the Lower and Upper Congo, that is, between Matadi and Leopoldville, on Stanley Pool, the river is not navigable, owing to the rapids. A railroad two hundred and fifty miles long unites these two places. It was built at a tremendous cost both of money and of life. Out of four hundred Chinese imported at one time, for work on the railroad, two hundred and fifty died within three years. Kruboys and others were brought from the north and engaged to work according to a certain definite contract; but in most cases the contract was disregarded and they were practically enslaved, working until they died. The railroad, the Chemin de Fer du Congo, is exceedingly useful and has also proved a paying investment. The fare from Matadi to Leopoldville, two hundred and fifty miles, was fifty dollars, when I was at Matadi, that is, twenty cents a mile. But I imagine that those who had made the journey on foot over that rough country, did not begrudge the exorbitant fare.

Henry M. Stanley, starting from Matadi, blasted the rocks in order to make a road by which the sections of his boat could be dragged along en route to the Upper Congo. Until I visited Matadi I did not know the meaning of the name which the natives gave to Stanley, Bula Matadi. It means Breaker of Rocks—a name to be proud of, surely; and one which Stanley deserved. His authority was superseded by that of the government of the Congo, which to this day is called by the natives Bula Matadi—Breaker of Rocks and incidentally of men. It happened that Consul Casement was at Matadi; and the captain and I were invited to a picnic which was given in his honour. It was a novel experience for Africa. We rowed down the river and landed for our lunch in a peculiar and pleasant place on piles of rock, of historic and even legendary interest.

During those days there was a representative missionary gathering at Matadi and I had the opportunity of meeting and conversing with missionaries from all over the Congo Free State. Some of them I had known before. All whom I met had but one story to tell in regard to the “Belgian atrocities,” a story that might have been a chapter from the history of Hell.

They told of seeing more than fifty severed hands at a time, including hands of children, which the soldiers were taking to the white men to prove that they had killed people according to their orders. The black soldiers had also eaten the flesh of their victims. Sometimes the agents demanded an amount of food from the natives for themselves and the entire post which the natives could only continue to furnish by buying from other natives; and they were expecting that when they could buy no more they would be killed. In some villages when the impost of food was delivered the people had nothing left for themselves, and fed on leaves. When the rubber in certain districts was becoming exhausted and the tax was not reduced the people mixed the latex (juice of the rubber vine) with an inferior latex, and when they did so the agent, if it was discovered, made them eat it. The work about the posts was done by slaves, mostly women, and at night these women were obliged to be at the disposal of the native soldiers. Missionaries themselves had met soldiers driving to the post women tied together with ropes, to be held as hostages until their husbands could bring a certain amount of rubber. This was the usual means of compelling men to bring rubber. They often tortured the women in order to intimidate the men. But many of the hostages could not be redeemed and were starved to death. They told of the mutilations of the living, of hands and feet chopped off, and of men unsexed. They told of four or five men placed in a row one behind another and shot with one bullet, and of women and children crucified. They told of the population of certain districts reduced from thousands to hundreds, and in other districts wiped out entirely. It is estimated by some that since the ascendency of King Leopold in the Congo the total population has decreased from twenty-five millions to fifteen millions, there being ten million murders set down to the account of the king.

Returning from Matadi to the steamer in the sultry tropical night, it seemed as if the very atmosphere were drenched with blood, that we breathed its vapours, and that the great swift-rolling tide beneath us was the blood of the slain millions, hurrying out to incarnadine the sea that boats against the shores of all the civilized world.

The greed of Leopold and the apathy of the nations are together responsible for the existence of present conditions in the Congo. It is irrelevant to answer that there are also atrocities in Portuguese and other possessions of Africa. There is more oppression and cruelty in the Congo Free State than in all the rest of Africa. Moreover, we have no authority over Portugal and can exercise only the right of appeal and its moral influence. But the Powers signatory to the Brussels Act, with the United States in the lead, created the Congo Free State, and are still the formal guardians of its people. A conference of those Powers would without doubt deal with other evils in Africa besides those of the Congo Free State. To the average man, unversed in the forms of international usage, it would seem within the competence of any one of the Powers which committed to King Leopold a sacred trust upon certain definite conditions, to urge upon the other responsible powers the duty of meeting again to inquire whether those conditions have been fulfilled and to adjudicate the issues relating to their non-fulfillment.

Meanwhile, the Congo State lies bleeding at every pore, and those who are hoping and praying in all the world for a people who have ceased to hope and have never learned to pray, have their eyes turned towards the United States.

A missionary writing from Baringa in the Congo said: “An old chief came up to where we were standing. ‘Oh, white man,’ he pleaded, ‘do have our work changed. We do not want to shirk it, but there is no longer any rubber in our district and my people are being killed for nothing. What am I to do?’ I suggested that the inspector appointed by the king would no doubt come to Baringa and he could appeal to him. He asked how long it would be before the inspector would come. I said perhaps two months; upon which he cried out, ‘Two months! It will be too late then. We shall all be killed before that time.’ And after we had left him we could hear him crying after us, ‘We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!’”

Four years have passed, and in all likelihood the chief with his family has been killed long ago, leaving not even a name behind him, but only this haunting cry, that keeps ringing in one’s heart.