Harper's Round Table, December 8, 1896

by Various

There are "street arabs," or homeless boys, in the Congo villages, just as there are in New York city. They live on what they can pick up, and it sharpens their wits to have to hustle for a living. It would take a smart Yankee boy to beat some of these Congo youngsters in a trade. Even a five-year-old will sometimes amass a little capital. Somehow he will get hold of a string of beads. He may trade it for a small chicken, which thrives under his nurturing care, and in a few months he can sell the fowl for four strings of beads, quadrupling his capital. Pretty soon he is able to buy a pig, which follows him like a dog, and sleeps in his hut; and when piggy grows up his owner gets a good price for him in the market.

I think you have never heard of Mr. Stanley's purchase of eighteen little black boys for three cents apiece. He told me the story once, and as I have never seen it in any of his books, I will tell it here. On the upper Congo he met a slave gang that was likely to die of starvation, for little food was to be had. His offer to the Arabs of a cotton handkerchief for each of the little boys in the party was accepted. The handkerchiefs had cost the explorer just three cents apiece, and it is doubtful if slaves were ever purchased so cheaply before. The explorer tucked his boys away in corners of his little steam-boat, and as he went down the Congo he distributed them among the stations he had built along the river-banks, and there the boys were taught to read and work. He took one of them to England, where the lad soon learned to speak English, and Mr. Stanley was surprised to find how much the boy could tell him about the language, customs, and legends of the people he came from, far up the Aruwimi River.

Young folks in Africa act a great deal as other boys and girls would do under similar circumstances. If we were unfortunates who were surely dying of hunger in a wilderness, perhaps we should be as glad as these boys were to be sold for three cents apiece, if the change meant plenty to eat and a kind master; and, if, free children as you are, you were mistaken for slaves, I doubt if you could be more deeply grieved than some untutored black children have been by such a blunder. On the lower Niger lives Sanabu, daughter of a chief. Awhile ago, when the girl was fourteen years old, she was permitted to accompany the French explorer Mizon, because she knew several native dialects, besides a little English and French, and was useful as an interpreter. One day a Portuguese asked Mizon how much he had paid for his little slave, and offered to buy her. Angry tears came to the child's eyes; but she brushed them away, as she drew herself up with the air of a little princess, and said: "I am no slave. I'm as free as you are. No one shall ever sell me." Sanabu was taken to France, and all the French people know the story of her life, and of her wanderings for a year as the interpreter of an explorer.

Sanabu is not the only little girl who has gone with an explorer as interpreter. In 1888 Mr. Paul Crampel brought to France the little daughter of a chief. The explorer did not want the child, but he found that the old African would be seriously offended if he did not accept the unique present. "Go with the white man," said the stern old father, as he led the trembling Niarinze to Crampel. "You have no longer a father or mother. You are going to the white man's country."

Crampel's young wife welcomed the little girl in Paris, where she was to learn to read and live out her days. But another fate was in store for the bright young creature. The time came when France sent Crampel back to Africa on a very difficult mission. He needed an interpreter among the widely spread Pahuin tribe, who are believed to number a million people. Niarinze was one of these people, and it was decided that she should go back with the explorer as his interpreter. A great crowd on the wharf saw them waving their handkerchiefs as the steamer bore them away, and that was the last that their friends in France ever saw of them. A few months later they were in an unknown country north of the Congo, and there Crampel was stabbed to death by treacherous men. The brave girl, rushing to his aid, seized a gun and shot dead one of the men who were murdering her white friend. She was knocked down and disarmed, and we do not know whether she ever rose again. Some of the fugitives said she was killed on the spot; but there was a later report that she was led away a slave, far north toward the Sahara Desert.

Do not some of these incidents show good qualities in these far-away African boys and girls that should attract in their behalf the sympathy and interest of more fortunate children in other lands? What boy could do more to show love for his mother than the little ten-year-old on the upper Congo whose thrilling story was told by Captain Coquilhat?

One day a woman of the great Bangala tribe was crossing the Congo in a canoe with her little boy. Kneeling in the dugout, she leaned over the side as she bent to her paddle. Suddenly a huge crocodile came to the surface, closed his jaws upon the mother's arm, and pulled her out of the canoe. The one thought in the boy's mind, a thought that triumphed over his terror, was that he must save his mother if he could. The paddle drifted near, and he picked it up. He could see by the swell of the water ahead where the crocodile was swimming with his prey, just below the surface. He started in pursuit, wielding the paddle with all his might.

WITH WHAT FRANTIC ENERGY THE BOY WORKED!

The animal easily gained on the canoe, and finally, far in advance, he pulled his victim out of the water upon the shore of an island. Then he plunged into the river again and swam away, perhaps to find his mate and share his prize with her. The boy paddled straight for the spot where his poor mother lay. As he gained the shore he knew that she was either dead or senseless. He leaned over her, and saw her terrible wounds. He was not strong enough to carry her in his arms, but he could draw her to the water's edge and pull and lift until the poor body was in the canoe. With what frantic energy he worked! And he had need; for before he could push off and point his boat homeward, he saw the crocodile up the river, and coming nearer every moment.