Chapter I: HAVE the honour to submit my Report on my recent journey on the Upper (2)

In the village of Montaka, at the south end of the lake, where I spent two days, the people seemed, during my stay, to be chiefly engrossed in the task of chipping and preparing the gum-copal for shipment to Bikoro, and in getting ready their weekly yield of fish for the same post. I saw the filling with gum of the ten basket-sacks taking place under the eyes of the Chief--who himself contributed--and a State sentry who was posted there. Each household in the town was represented at this final task, and every adult householder of Montaka shared in the general contribution. Assuming the population of Montaka at from 600 to 800--and it cannot now be more although a town of 4,000 souls ten years ago--fully 150 householders are thus directly affected by the collection and delivery, each fortnight, of this “impôt en nature,” and are affected for the great majority of the days throughout the year.

Since for the 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal which the 150 householders of Montaka contribute annually, they are seen to receive not more than a total payment of 10_l._ in the year--viz., 26 fortnightly payments of, on an average, say 9 fr. 50 c., giving 247 fr. annually--it follows that the remuneration each adult householder of Montaka receives for his entire year’s work is the one hundred and fiftieth part of that total--or just 1_s._ 4_d._ This is just the value of an adult fowl in Montaka. I bought ten fowls, or chickens rather, the morning of my going away, and for the only reasonably sized one among them I gave 30 rods (1 fr. 50 c.), the others, small fledglings, ranging from 15 to 20 rods each (75 cents. to 1 fr.).

The 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal supplied annually by these 150 householders being valued at about 364_l._, it follows that each householder had contributed something like 2_l._ 8_s._ per annum in kind.

The labour involved may or may not be unduly excessive--but it is continuous throughout the year--each man must stay in his town and be prepared each week and fortnight to have his contribution ready under fear of summary punishment.

The natives engaged as workmen on my steamer were paid each a sum of 20 rods (1 fr.) per week for food rations only, and 100 rods (5 fr.) per month wages. One of these native workmen thus earned more in one week of my service--which was that of any other private establishment employing ordinary labour--than the Montaka householder got in an entire year for his compulsory public service rendered to the Government.

At other villages which I visited, I found the tax to consist of baskets, which the inhabitants had to make and deliver weekly as well as, always, a certain amount of food-stuffs--either kwanga or fish. These baskets are used at Bikoro in packing up the gum-copal for conveyance down the river and to Europe--the river transport being effected by Government steamers. The basket-makers and other workers complained that they were sometimes remunerated for their labour with reels of sewing cotton and shirt buttons (of which they had no use) when supplies of cloth or brass wire ran short at Bikoro. As these natives go almost entirely naked, I could believe that neither thread or shirt buttons were of much service to them. They also averred that they were frequently flogged for delay or inability to complete the tale of these baskets, or the weekly supply of food. Several men, including a Chief of one town, showed broad weals across their buttocks, which were evidently recent. One, a lad of 15 or so, removing his cloth, showed several scars across his thighs, which he and others around him said had formed part of a weekly payment for a recent shortage in their supply of food. That these statements were not all untrue was confirmed by my visit to P*, when the “domaine privé” store was shown to me. It had very little in it, and I learned that the barter stock of goods had not been replenished for some time. There appeared to be from 200 to 300 pieces of coarse cotton cloth, and nothing else, and as the cloth was visibly old, I estimated the value of the entire stock at possibly 15_l._ It certainly would not have fetched more if put up to auction in any part of the Upper Congo.

The instructions regulating the remuneration of the native contributors and the mode of exploitation of the “forêts domaniales” were issued in the “Bulletin Officiel” of 1896, under authority of Decrees dated the 30th October and the 5th December, 1892.

These general instructions require that:--

“L’exploitation se fait par les agents de l’Intendance, sous la
direction du Commissaire de District.

“Tout ce qui se rapporte à l’exploitation du domaine privé doit
être séparé nettement des autres services gouvernementaux.

“Les agents préposés à l’exploitation du domaine privé consacrent
tous leurs soins au développement de la récolte du caoutchouc et
des autres produits de la forêt.

“Quel que soit le mode d’exploitation adopté à cet effet, ils sont
tenus d’accorder aux indigènes une rémunération qui ne sera en
aucun cas inférieure au montant du prix de la main-d’œuvre
nécessaire à la récolte du produit; cette rémunération est fixée
par le Commissaire de District, qui soumet son tarif à
l’approbation du Gouverneur-Général.

“L’Inspecteur d’État en mission vérifie si ce tarif est en rapport
avec le prix de la main-d’œuvre; il veille à sa stricte
application, et il examine si les conditions générales
d’exploitation ne donnent lieu à aucune plainte justifiée.

“Il fait comprendre aux agents chargés du service que, par le fait
de rétribuer équitablement l’indigène, ils emploient le seul moyen
efficace d’assurer la bonne administration du domaine et de faire
naître chez lui le goût et l’habitude du travail.”

Both from the condition of the Domaine Privé Store I inspected at P*, and the obvious poverty and universal discontent of the native contributors, whose towns I visited during the seventeen days spent in Lake Mantumba, it was clear that these instructions had long since ceased to be operative. The responsibility for the non-application of such necessary regulations could not be attributed to the local officials, who, obviously, if left without the means of adequate remuneration could not themselves make good the oversights or omissions of their superiors. That these omissions form part of a systematic breach of instructions conceived in the interest of the native I do not assert, but it was most apparent that neither in Lake Mantumba nor the other portions of the Domaine Privé which I visited was any adequate provision made for inculcating the natives with any just appreciation of the value of work.

The station at Bikoro has been established as a Government plantation for about ten years. It stands on the actual site of the former native town of Bikoro, an important Settlement in 1893, now reduced to a handful of ill-kept, untidy huts, inhabited by only a remnant of its former expropriated population.

Another small village, Bomenga, stands on the other side of the Government houses; the plantation enveloping both villages, and occupying their old cassava fields and gardens, which are now planted with coffee trees. Further inland these give place to cocoa and india-rubber trees (_fantumia elastica_), and also to the indigenous Landolphia creeper, which is being extensively cultivated. The entire plantation covers 800 hectares. There are 70 kilom. of well-cleared pathway through it, one of these roads measuring 11 kilom. in almost a straight line; 400 workmen are employed, consisting in small part of local natives, but chiefly of men brought from a distance. One numerous group I saw I was informed were “prisoners” from the Ruki district. There are 140,000 coffee trees and 170,000 cocoa trees actually in the ground, the latter a later planting than the coffee. Last year the yield was: coffee 112 tons, and cocoa 7 tons, all of which, after cleaning and preparing at the Government depôt at Kinchasa, was shipped to Europe on the Government account. India-rubber planting was not begun until November 1901. There are now 248 hectares already under cultivation, having 700,000 young Landolphia creepers, and elsewhere on the plantation, on portions mainly given up to coffee growing, there are 50,000 _fantumia elastica_ and 50,000 _manihot glaziovii_ trees. The station buildings are composed entirely of native materials, and are erected entirely by local native labour. The Chief of the Post has very ably directed the work of this plantation, which engrosses all his time, and until quite recently he had no assistant. A subordinate official is now placed under his orders. When he took over the district he told me there were sixty-eight native soldiers attached to the post, which number he has now been able to reduce to nineteen. In the days when the india-rubber tax prevailed in Lake Mantumba there were several hundreds of soldiers required in that region. No rubber is now worked in the neighbourhood I am informed.

Despite the 70 kilom. of roadway through the plantation, much of which has to be frequently--indeed daily--traversed, the two Europeans have no means of locomotion provided them, and must make their daily inspection to various points of this large plantation on foot.

In addition to the control of this flourishing establishment, the Chief of the Post is the Executive Chief of the entire district, but it is evident that but little time or energy could be left to the most energetic official for duties outside the immediate scope of his work as a coffee and india-rubber grower, in addition to those “engrossing cares” the general instructions cited above impose upon the agents who exploit the State domain.

I have dwelt upon the condition of P* and the towns I visited around Lake Mantumba in my notes taken at the time, and these are appended hereto (Inclosure 3).[15] A careful investigation of the conditions of native life around the lake confirmed the truth of the statements made to me--that the great decrease in population, the dirty and ill-kept towns, and the complete absence of goats, sheep, or fowls--once very plentiful in this country--were to be attributed above all else to the continued effort made during many years to compel the natives to work india-rubber. Large bodies of native troops had formerly been quartered in the district, and the punitive measures undertaken to this end had endured for a considerable period. During the course of these operations there had been much loss of life, accompanied, I fear, by a somewhat general mutilation of the dead, as proof that the soldiers had done their duty. Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q* and one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of these villages the people have only just returned; to others they are only now returning. In one I found the bare and burnt poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another--that of R*--the people had fled at the approach of my steamer, and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board, nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding villages I visited beyond R*, in traversing the lake towards the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was that they could be induced to return.

At one of these villages, S*, after confidence had been restored and the fugitives had been induced to come in from the surrounding forest, where they had hidden themselves, I saw women coming back carrying their babies, their household utensils, and even the food they had hastily snatched up, up to a late hour of the evening. Meeting some of these returning women in one of the fields I asked them why they had run away at my approach, and they said, smiling, “We thought you were Bula Matadi” (_i.e._, “men of the Government”). Fear of this kind was formerly unknown on the Upper Congo; and in much more out-of-the-way places visited many years ago the people flocked from all sides to greet a white stranger. But to-day the apparition of a white man’s steamer evidently gave the signal for instant flight.

The chief of the P* post told me that a similar alarm reigned almost everywhere in the country behind his station, and that when he went on the most peaceful missions only a few miles from his house the villages were generally emptied of all human beings when he entered them, and it was impossible in the majority of cases to get into touch with the people in their own homes. It was not so in all cases, he said, and he instanced certain villages where he could go certain of a friendly reception, but with the majority, he said, he had found it quite impossible to ever find them “at home.” He gave, as an explanation, when I asked for the reason of this fear of the white man, that as these people were great savages, and knew themselves how many crimes they had committed, they doubtless feared that the white man of the Government was coming to punish their misconduct. He added that they had undoubtedly had an “awful past” at the hands of some of the officials who had preceded him in the local administration, and that it would take time for confidence to be restored. Men, he said, still came to him whose hands had been cut off by the Government soldiers during those evil days, and he said there were still many victims of this species of mutilation in the surrounding country. Two cases of the kind came to my actual notice while I was in the lake. One, a young man, both of whose hands had been beaten off with the butt ends of rifles against a tree, the other a young lad of 11 or 12 years of age, whose right hand was cut off at the wrist. This boy described the circumstances of his mutilation, and, in answer to my inquiry, said that although wounded at the time he was perfectly sensible of the severing of his wrist, but lay still fearing that if he moved he would be killed. In both these cases the Government soldiers had been accompanied by white officers whose names were given to me. Of six natives (one a girl, three little boys, one youth, and one old woman) who had been mutilated in this way during the rubber régime, all except one were dead at the date of my visit. The old woman had died at the beginning of this year, and her niece described to me how the act of mutilation in her case had been accomplished. The day I left Lake Mantumba five men whose hands had been cut off came to the village of T* across the lake to see me, but hearing that I had already gone away they returned to their homes. A messenger came in to tell me, and I sent to T* to find them, but they had then dispersed. Three of them subsequently returned, but too late for me to see them. These were some of those, I presume, to whom the official had referred, for they came from the country in the vicinity of P* station. Statements of this character, made both by the two mutilated persons I saw and by others who had witnessed this form of mutilation in the past, are appended (Inclosure 4).[16]

The taxes levied on the people of the district being returnable each week or fortnight, it follows that they cannot leave their homes. At some of the villages I visited near the end of Lake Mantumba the fish supplies have to be delivered weekly to the military camp at Irebu, or when the water is high in the lake and fish harder to catch, every ten days. The distance from Irebu of one of these towns could not have been less than 45 miles. To go and come between their homes and the camp involved to the people of this town 90 miles of canoe paddling, and with the lake stormy and its waters rough--as is often the case--the double journey would take at least four days. This consumption of time must be added to that spent in the catching of the fish, and as the punishment for any falling off in quantity or delay in delivery is not a light one, the Chief responsible for the tax stoutly opposes any one quitting the town. Some proof of this incidentally arose during my stay, and threatened to delay my journey. Being short-handed I sought, when at Ikoko, to engage six or seven young men of the town as woodcutters to travel on board the steamer. I proposed to engage them for two or three months, and offered good wages, much more than by any local service they could hope to earn. More men offered than I needed, and I selected six. The State Chief of the village hearing of this at once came to me to protest against any of his people leaving the town, and said that he would have all the youths I had engaged tied up and sent over to the Government official at Bikoro. There were at the time three soldiers armed with Albini rifles quartered at Ikoko, and the Chief sent for them to arrest my would-be crew. The Chief’s argument, too, was perfectly logical. He said, “I am responsible each week for 600 rations of fish which must be delivered at Bikoro. If it fails I am held responsible and will be punished. I have been flogged more than once for a failure in the fish supply, and will not run any risks. If these men go I shall be short-handed, therefore they must stay to help in getting the weekly tax.” I was forced to admit the justice of this argument, and we finally arrived at a compromise. I promised the Chief that, in addition to paying wages to the men I took, a sum representing the value to him of their labour should be left at Ikoko, so that he might hire extra hands to get the full quantity of fish required of him. S I admitted that he had been forced to flog men from villages which failed in their weekly supplies, but that he had for some months discontinued this course. He said that now he put defaulters into prison instead. If a village which was held to supply, say, 200 rations of fish each week brought only 180 rations, he accepted no excuse, but put two men in “block.” If thirty rations were wanting he detained three of the men, and so on--a man for each ten rations. These people would remain prisoners, and would have to work at Bikoro, or possibly would be sent to Coquilhatville, the administrative head-quarters of the Equator district, until the full imposition came in.

I subsequently found when in the neighbourhood of Coquilhatville that summary arrest and imprisonment of this kind for failure to complete the tale of local imposition is of constant occurrence. The men thus arrested are kept often in the “chain gang” along with other prisoners, and are put to the usual class of penitential work. They are not brought before or tried by any Court or sentenced to any fixed term of imprisonment, but are merely detained until some sort of satisfaction is obtained, and while under detention are kept at hard work.

Indeed, I could not find that a failure to meet the weekly tax is punishable by law and no law was cited to me as a warrant for this summary imprisonment, but if such a law exists it is to be presumed that it does not treat the weekly taxpayers’ failure as a grave criminal offence. The men taken are frequently not those in fault; the requisitioning authority cannot discriminate. He is forced to insure compliance with the demands imposed on each village, and the first men to hand from the offending community of necessity have to pay in the chain-gang the general failure and possibly the individual fault of others. Men taken in this way are sometimes not seen again in their own homes. They are either taken to distant Government stations as workmen, or are drafted as soldiers into the Force Publique. The names of many men thus taken from the Mantumba district were given to me, and in some cases their relatives had heard of their death in distant parts of the country. This practice was, I believe, more general in the past, but that it still exists to-day, and on an extensive scale, I had several instances of observing in widely separated districts. The officials effecting these arrests do not seem to have any other course open to them, unless it be a resort to military punitive measures or to individual corporal punishment; while the natives assert that, as the taxes are unequally distributed, and their own numbers constantly decreasing, the strain upon them each week often becomes unbearable, and some of their number will shirk the constantly recurring unwelcome task. Should this shirking become general instead of being confined to individuals, punitive measures are undertaken against the refractory community. Where these do not end in fighting, loss of life and destruction of native property, they entail very heavy fines which are levied on the defaulting village. An expedition of the minor kind occurred some five months before my presence in Lake Mantumba. The village in fault was that of R*, the one where when I sought to visit it no people would remain to face me. This village was said to have been some three weeks in arrears with the fish it was required to supply to the camp at Irebu. An armed force occupied it, commanded by an officer, and captured ten men and eight canoes. These canoes and the prisoners were conveyed by water to Irebu, the main force marching back by land.

My informant, who dwelt in a village near R*, which I was then visiting, said he saw the prisoners being taken back to Irebu under guard of six black soldiers, tied up with native rope so tightly that they were calling aloud with pain. The force halted the night in his town. These people were detained at Irebu for ten days until the people of R* had brought in a supply of fish and had paid a fine. Upon their release two of these men died, one close to Irebu and the other within sight of the village I was in, and two more, my informant added, died soon after their return to R*. A man, who saw them, said the prisoners were ill and bore the marks on wrists and legs of the thongs used in tying them. Of the canoes captured only the old ones were returned to R*, the better ones being confiscated.

The native relating this incident added that he thought it stupid of the white men to take both men and canoes away from a small place like R* as a punishment for a shortage in its fish supply. “The men were wanted to catch fish and so were the canoes,” he said, “and to take both away only made it harder for the people of R* to perform their task.” I went to R* in the hope of being able to verify the truth of this and other statements made to me as to the hardships recently inflicted on its people by reason of their disobedience, but owing to their timidity, to whatever cause this might have been due, it was impossible for me to get into touch with any of them. That a very close watch is kept on the people of the district and their movements is undoubted. In the past they escaped in large numbers to the French territory, but many were prevented by force from doing this, and numbers were shot in the attempt.

To-day the Congolese authorities discourage intercourse of this kind, not by the same severe measures as formerly, but probably none the less effectively. By a letter dated the 2nd July, 1902, the present Commandant of the camp of Irebu wrote as follows to the Rev. E. V. Sjoblom, a Swedish Missionary (since dead), who was then in charge of the Mission at Ikoko:

“Je vous serais bien obligé de ne pas permettre à vos jeunes gens
de se rendre sur la rive Française et vendre aux indigènes Français
qui ont fui notre rive, des vivres, produits du travail de nos
indigènes, que eux-mêmes n’ont pas fui et ne se sont pas soustraits
au travail que nous leur avons imposé.”

From Lake Mantumba I proceeded to the immediate neighbourhood of Coquilhatville, where five days were spent, chiefly at native communities which stretch for some distance along the east bank of the Congo. These villages formerly extended for 15 miles, and were then filled with a numerous population. To-day they are broken up into isolated settlements, each much reduced in numbers, and with (in most cases) the houses badly constructed. There were no goats or sheep to be seen, whereas formerly these were very plentiful, and food for the crew was only obtained with difficulty. In the village of V*, which I twice visited, the usual tax of food-stuff, with firing for the steamers, had to be supplied to Coquilhatville, which is distant only some 6 miles. A Government sentry was quartered here, who, along with one of the Chiefs of the town, spoke fully of the condition of the people. The sentry himself came from the Upper Bussira River, some hundreds of miles distant. This was, he said, his third period of service with the Force Publique. As his reason for remaining so long in this service he asserted that, as his own village and country were subjected to much trouble in connection with the rubber tax, he could not live in his own home, and preferred, he said, laughing, “to be with the hunters rather than with the hunted.” Both a Chief V* and this sentry represented the food taxes levied on this village as difficult for the people to collect, and only inadequately remunerated. There would appear in all these statements a contradiction in terms. The contributions required of the natives are continually spoken of as a “tax,” and are as continually referred to as being “paid for” or “remunerated.” It is obvious that taxes are neither bought nor sold, but the contradiction is only one of terms. The fact is that the weekly or fortnightly contributions everywhere required of the native communities I visited are levied as taxes, or “prestations annuelles,” by authority of a Royal Decree of the Sovereign of the Congo State. The Decrees authorizing the levy of these taxes are dated the 6th October, 1891 (Article 4), that of the 5th December, 1892, and (for the district of Manyeuma) that of the 28th November, 1893. There is a further Decree, dated the 30th April, 1897, requiring the establishment and up-keep by native Chiefs of coffee and cocoa plantations. I nowhere saw or heard of such plantations existing as institutions maintained by the natives themselves. There are plantations of both existing, but these are the property of either the Government itself or of some European agency acting with its sanction and partly in its interests, on lands declared as public lands. With regard to the two first Decrees establishing a system of taxation, provision was made for the investiture of a native Chief recognized by the local Government authority, who should give to this Chief a copy of the _procès-verbal_, as registered in the public archives, and a medal or other symbol of office. With this investiture a list was ordered to be drawn up, indicating the name of the village, its exact situation, the names of the Headmen, the number of its houses, and the actual number of the population--men, women, and children. The Decree then goes on to provide for the manner in which the “prestations annuelles” imposed on each village were to be assessed. A list of the products to be furnished by each village--such as maize, sorghum, palm oil, ground-nuts, &c., corvées of workmen or soldiers--was to be drawn up by the Commissaire of the district. It was provided that this list should also indicate the lands which were to be cleared and cultivated under the direction of the Chiefs, the nature of such cultivation put in hand, and “all other works of public utility which might be prescribed in the interest of public health, the exploitation or improvement of the soil, or otherwise.” These lists had first of all to be submitted for his approval to the Governor-General. I could not find that, save in respect of the strict enforcement of the contributions, this law was generally or rigorously observed. In many villages where I asked for it no copy of any _procès-verbal_ could be produced, and in several cases no act of investiture of the local Chief seemed to have ever taken place. Plantations, such as those outlined in the Decree which made provision for them, nowhere exist in any part of the country I traversed. The enumeration of the houses and people had in some instances been made, I was informed, but it was many years ago; and as the population had since greatly declined, this enumeration could not to-day always serve as an accurate basis on which to reckon the extent of the existing contribution.

At the village of A*, which I visited twice during my stay in the neighbourhood, A furnished me with particulars as to his own public obligations. His portion of A* had formerly been extensive, and at the date when an enumeration was made contained many people. To-day it has only six adult householders, including himself, inhabiting now eleven huts in all, with their wives and children--a total population of twenty-seven persons. My attention was first drawn to him and his village by my meeting with a young boy--a lad of 7 years old, I should judge--whom I found in the village of U* as the recently acquired property of B. B told me he had bought the boy, C, from A for 1,000 rods (50 fr.). A, he said, having to meet a fine imposed by the Commissaire-Général for shortage in some of the weeks’ supplies, and being 1,000 rods short of the amount required, had pawned his nephew C to him for that sum. This had taken place on the [blank space in text], and my interview with B and the boy took place on the [blank space in text]. The next day I walked to A*, which lies within a few miles of Coquilhatville, and saw A and his town and people. There were then exactly eight men in the town, including himself; but as two have since been detained as prisoners at Coquilhatville for deficiencies in the weekly supplies, there were, when I last saw A* in September, only six adult males there. The weekly imposition levied on A’s part of A* was--

Kwanga 150 rations (about 700 lbs. weight of food).
Fish 95 rations.
Palm thatching mats 900
Firewood, for steamer fuel 2 canoe loads.

Also each week one large fresh fish or, in lieu thereof, two fowls for the European table at Coquilhatville. In addition, the men had to help in hunting game in the woods for the European station staff.

The payments made each week for these supplies (when they were completely delivered) were:--

Fr. c.
Kwanga, 150 rods 7 50
Fish, 95 rods 4 75
Palm mats, 180 rods 9 0
2 canoe loads firewood, 1 rod 0 5
------
21 30

Payments for firewood were made by a paper receipt to be redeemed annually, but A told me he had refused to accept the annual payment of 50 rods (2 fr. 50 c.) for 104 canoe loads of wood delivered during the twelve months. To obtain these supplies A had frequently to purchase both fish and palm mats. The fish, as a rule, cost from 10 to 20 rods per ration, and the market price of thatching mats is 1 rod each; while the kwanga, which the Government paid 1 rod for, fetched just 5 rods each in the open market. The value of A’s weekly contribution was, according to current prices, as follows:--

----------------------------------------+---------+-----------------
| Rods. | Value.
+---------+----------
| | Fr. c.
150 rations, kwanga, each 5 rods | 750 | 37 50
95 “ fish, each 10 rods | 950 | 47 50
900 palm mats, each 1 rod | 900 | 45 0
2 canoe loads firewood, each 20 rods | 40 | 2 0
+---------+----------
Total | | 132 0
----------------------------------------+---------+-----------------

Thus, taking no account of the fresh fish or fowls, A’s small township of eight households lost 110 fr. 70 c. per week. At the year’s end, while they had contributed 6,864 fr. worth of food and material to the local Government station, they had received as recompense 1,107 fr. 60 c. A, personally, had a larger share of the tax to meet than any of the others, and I found that the value of his personal contribution reached 80_l._ 3_s._ 4_d._ per annum by local prices, while he received in settlement 9_l._ 15_s._ in Government payments. He therefore contributed on his household of two wives, his mother, and dependents, inhabiting three grass and cane huts, an amount equal to 70_l._ 8_s._ 4_d._ per annum net.

These figures, I found on inquiry, were confirmed as correct by those who were acquainted with the local conditions. A stated that his elder brother, D, was in reality Chief of the township, but that some eight months previously D had been arrested for a deficiency in the fish and kwanga supplies. The Commissaire had then imposed a fine of 5,000 rods (250 fr.) on the town, which A, with the assistance of a neighbouring Chief named C, had paid. D was not thereupon at once released, and soon afterwards escaped from the prison at Coquilhatville, and remained in hiding in the forest. Soldiers came from the Government station and tied up eight women in the town. A and all the men ran away upon their coming, but he himself returned in the morning. The Commissaire-Général visited A*, and told A that as D had run away he (A) was now the recognized Chief of the town. He was then ordered to find his fugitive brother, whose whereabouts he did not know, and a town in the neighbourhood name E, suspected of harbouring him, was fined 5,000 rods. Since that date, although D had returned to A* to reside, A had been held, against his will, as responsible Chief of the town. He was a young man of about 23 or 24 years of age I should say. He had repeatedly, he stated, begged to be relieved of the honour thrust upon him, but in vain. His brother, D, had recently been put again in prison at Coquilhatville in connection with the loss of two cap-guns furnished him when Chief in order to procure game for the local white men’s table. The present impositions laid on A* were, A asserted, much more than it was possible for him to meet. He had repeatedly appealed to the Commissaire-Général and other officers at Coquilhatville, including the law officer, begging them to visit his town and see for themselves--as I might see--that he was speaking the truth. But, so far, no one would listen to him, and he had been always rebuffed. On the last occasion of his making this appeal, only three days before I saw him, he had been threatened with prompt imprisonment if he failed in his supplies, and he said he now saw no course before him but flight or imprisonment. He could not run away, he said, and leave his mother and dependents; besides, he would be surely found, and, in any case, whatever town harboured him would be fined as E had been.

On a certain Sunday, when he had gone in with the usual weekly supplies, which are returnable on Sundays, he had been short of eight rations of fish and ten rations of kwanga and 330 palm mats, representing a value of 84 rods (4 fr. 20 c.), as estimated on the scale of Government payments. On the same date the other and larger portion of A* town was also short of its tale of supplies, and a fine of 5,000 brass rods (250 fr.) was imposed upon the collective village. A’s share of this fine was fixed by the natives among themselves at 2,000 rods, of which 1,000 rods were to be his own personal contribution. Having himself now no money and no other means of obtaining it, he had pledged--with the consent of the father--his little nephew, D’s son, whom I had seen with B. In making inquiry, A’s story received much confirmation. He was, at any rate, known as a man of very good character, and everything pointed to his statement being true. On my return down river, I again saw A, who came after nightfall to see me, in the hope that I might perhaps be able to help him. He said that, since I had left a month previously, two of the boys of his town had been detained at Coquilhatville as prisoners when taking the rations on two successive weeks, owing to a deficiency on each occasion of 18 rods in value (90 cents.), and that these two boys--whose names he gave me--were still in prison. He had been that very day, he said, to beg that they might be released, but had failed, and there were now only five adult males in his village, including himself.

While in Coquilhatville on this mission, he declared that he had seen eleven men brought in from villages in the neighbourhood, who were put in prison before him--all of them on account of a shortage in the officially fixed scale of supplies required from their districts. I offered to take him away with me in order to lay his case before the judicial authorities elsewhere, but he refused to leave his mother. That A’s statements were not so untrustworthy as on the face they might seem to be, was proved a few days later by a comparison of his case with that of another village I visited. This was a town named W*, lying some three miles inland in a swampy forest situated near the mouth of the X* River. On quitting Coquilhatville, I proceeded to the mouth of this river, which enters the Congo some forty-five miles above that station, and I remained two days in that neighbourhood. Learning that the people of the immediate neighbourhood had recently been heavily fined for failure in their food supplies, which have to be delivered weekly at that station, and that these fines had fallen with especial severity on W*, I decided to visit that town.

It was on the 21st August that I visited W*, where I found that the statements made to me were borne out by my personal observation. The town consisted of a long single street of native huts lying in the midst of a clearing in the forest. In traversing it from end to end I estimated the number of its people at about 600 all told.

At the upper end of the town a number of men and women assembled, and some came forward, when they made a lengthy statement to the following effect. From this upper end of the town wherein I was 100 rations of kwanga had to be supplied weekly, and thirty fowls at a longer interval. These latter were for the use of Coquilhatville, while the kwanga was very largely for the use of the wood-cutters at the nearest Government wood-cutting post on the main river. The usual prices for these articles, viz., for the kwanga, 1 rod each, and for the fowls 20 rods were paid. The people also had to take each week 10 fathoms of firewood to the local wood-post, for which they often got no payment, and their women were required twice a week to work at the Government coffee plantation which extends around the wood-post.

I saw some bundles of firewood being got ready for carriage to this place. They were large and very heavy, weighing, I should say, from 70 to 80 lb. each. Some months earlier, at the beginning of the year, owing, as they said, to their failure to send in the fowls to Coquilhatville, an armed expedition of some thirty soldiers, commanded by a European officer, had come thence and occupied their town. At first they had fled into the forest, but were persuaded to come in. On returning, many of them--the principal men--- were at once tied up to trees. The officer informed them that as they had failed in their duty they must be punished. He required first that twenty-five men should be furnished as workmen for Government service. These men were taken away to serve the Government as labourers, and those addressing me did not know where these men now were. They gave eighteen names of men so taken, and said that the remaining seven came from the lower end of the town through which I had passed on entering, where the relatives themselves could give me particulars if I wished. The twenty-five men had not since been seen in W*, nor had any one there cognizance of their whereabouts. The officer had then imposed as further punishment a fine of 55,000 brass rods (2,750 fr.)--110_l._ This sum they had been forced to pay, and as they had no other means of raising so large a sum they had, many of them, been compelled to sell their children and their wives. I saw no live-stock of any kind in W* save a very few fowls--possibly under a dozen--and it seemed, indeed, not unlikely that, as these people asserted, they had great difficulty in always getting their supplies ready. A father and mother stepped out and said that they had been forced to sell their son, a little boy called F, for 1,000 rods to meet their share of the fine. A widow came and declared that she had been forced, in order to meet her share of the fine, to sell her daughter G, a little girl whom I judged from her description to be about 10 years of age. She had been sold to a man in Y*, who was named, for 1,000 rods, which had then gone to make up the fine.

A man named H stated that while the town was occupied by the soldiers, a woman who belonged to his household, named I, had been shot dead by one of the soldiers. Her husband, a man named K, stepped forward and confirmed the statement. They both declared that the woman had quitted her husband’s house to obey a call of Nature, and that one of the soldiers, thinking she was going to run away, had shot her through the head. The soldier was put under arrest by the officer, and they said they saw him taken away a prisoner when the force was withdrawn from their town, but they knew nothing more than this. They did not know if he had been tried or punished. No one of them had ever been summoned to appear, no question had been addressed to them, and neither had the husband nor the head of I’s household received any compensation for her death. Another woman named L, the wife of a man named M, had been taken away by the native sergeant who was with the soldiers. He had admired her, and so took her back with him to Coquilhatville. Her husband heard she had died there of small-pox, but he did not know anything certain of her circumstances after she had been taken away from W*. A man named N said he had sold his wife O to a man in Y* for 900 rods to meet his share of the fine.

It was impossible for me to verify these statements, or to do much beyond noting down, as carefully as possible, the various declarations made. I found, however, on returning to Y*, that the statements made with regard to the little boy F and the girl G were true. These children were both in the neighbourhood, and owing to my intervention F was restored to his parents. The girl G, I was told, had again changed hands, and was promised in sale to a town on the north bank of the Congo, named Iberi, whose people are said to be still open cannibals. Through the hands of the local missionary this transfer was prevented, and I paid the 1,000 rods to her original purchaser, and left G to be restored to her mother from the Mission. I saw her there on the 9th September, after she had been recovered through this missionary’s efforts, while about to be sent to her parent.

With regard to the quantity of food supplies levied upon W*, I did not obtain the total amount required of the entire community, but only that which the upper end of the town furnished. The day of my visit happened to be just that when the kwanga, due at the local wood-post, was being prepared for delivery on the morrow. I saw many of the people getting their shares ready. Each share of kwanga, for which a payment of 1 rod is made by the Government, consisted of five rolls of this food tied together. One of these bundles of five rolls I sought to buy, offering the man carrying it 10 rods--or ten times what he was about to receive for it from the local Government post. He refused my offer, saying that, although he would like the 10 rods, he dare not be a bundle of his ration short. One of these bundles was weighed and found to weigh over 15 lb. This may have been an extraordinarily large bundle, although I saw many others which appeared to be of the same size. I think it would be safe to assume that the average of each ration of kwanga required from this town was not less than 12 lb. weight of cooked and carefully prepared food--a not ungenerous offering for 1/2_d._ By this computation the portion of W* I visited sends in weekly 1,200 lb. weight of food at a remuneration of some 5 fr. Cooked bread-stuffs supplied at 9 or 10 fr. per ton represent, it must be admitted, a phenomenally cheap loaf. At the same time with this kwanga, being prepared for the Government use, I saw others being made up for general public consumption. I bought some of these, which were going to the local market, at their current market value, viz., 1 rod each. On weighing them I found they gave an average of 1 lb. each. The weight of food-stuffs required by the Government from this town would seem to have exceeded in weight twelve times that made up for public consumption.

Whilst I was in Y* a fresh fine of 20,000 rods (1,000 fr.) was in course of collection among the various households along the river bank. This fine had been quite recently imposed by direction of ---- for a further failure on the part of the Y* towns in the supply of food-stuffs from that neighbourhood. I saw at several houses piles of brass rods being collected to meet it, and in front of one of these houses I counted 2,700 rods which had been brought together by the various dependents of that family; 6,000 rods of this further fine was, I was told, to be paid by W*, which had not then recovered from its previous much larger contribution. The W* men begged me to intervene, if I could at all help them to escape this further imposition. One of them--a strong, indeed a splendid-looking man--broke down and wept, saying that their lives were useless to them, and that they knew of no means of escape from the troubles which were gathering around them. I could only assure these people that their obvious course to obtain relief was by appeal to their own constituted authorities, and that if their circumstances were clearly understood by those responsible for these fines, I trusted and believed some satisfaction would be forthcoming.

These fines, it should be borne in mind, are illegally imposed: they are not “fines of Court”; are not pronounced after any judicial hearing, or for any proved offence against the law, but are quite arbitrarily levied according to the whim or ill-will of the executive officers of the district, and their collection, as well as their imposition, involves continuous breaches of the Congolese laws. They do not, moreover, figure in the account of public revenues in the Congo “Budgets;” they are not paid into the public purse of the country, but are spent on the needs of the station or military camp of the officer imposing them, just as seems good to this official.

I can nowhere learn upon what legal basis, if any, the punishments inflicted upon native communities or individuals for failure to comply with the various forms of “prestations” rest.

These punishments are well-nigh universal and take many shapes, from punitive expeditions carried out on a large scale to such simpler forms of fine and imprisonment as that lately inflicted on U*.

I cannot find in the Penal Code of the Congo Statute Book that a failure to meet or a non-compliance with any form of prestation or _impôt_ is anywhere defined as a crime; and so far as I can see no legal sanction could be cited for any one of the punishments so often inflicted upon native communities for this failure.

By a Royal Decree of the 11th August, 1886, provision was made for the punishments to be inflicted for infractions of the law not punishable by special penalties.

Since no special penalty in law would seem to have been provided for cases of failure or refusal to comply with the demands of the tax-gatherer, it would seem to be in the terms of this Decree that the necessary legal sanctions could alone lie.

But this Decree provides for all otherwise unspecified offences far other punishments, and far other modes of inflicting them than so many of those which came to my notice during my brief journey.

Article 1 of this Decree provides that:--

“Les contraventions aux décrets, ordonnances, arrêtes, règlements
d’administration intérieure et de police, à l’égard desquelles la
loi ne détermine pas de peines particulières, seront punies d’un à
sept jours de servitude pénale et d’une amende n’excédant pas 200
fr., ou d’une de ces peines seulement.”

Article 2 requires that:--

“Ces peines seront appliquées par les Tribunaux de l’État
conformément aux lois en vigueur.”

It would be manifestly impossible to say that either in form or mode of procedure this law had been applied to the failure of the community at W* to meet the demands made upon them.

Neither the summary arrest and taking away from their homes of the men whose names were given to me nor the imposition of the very heavy fine of brass rods find any warrant in this page of the Congo Statute Book.

If a legal warrant exists for the action of the authorities in this case--as in the numerous other cases brought to my notice--that action would still call for much adverse comment.

The amount of the fine levied on W* was not only out of all proportion to the gravity of the offence committed, but was of so crushing a character as to preclude the possibility of its being acquitted by any reasonable or legitimate means that community disposed of.

Among the earliest enactments of civilized administrations, recognition has invariably been given to the pronouncement that no fine or imposition, or exaction, shall exceed the powers of the person on whom it is imposed to meet it.

But if, as I venture to presume, no Congolese law or judicial pronouncement exists, or could exist, for the levying, in this manner, of these fines, very explicit Regulations for the treatment of the natives on general lines and their right to judicial protection do exist.

In the “texte coordonné des diverses instructions relatives aux rapports des Agents de l’État avec les indigènes,” which are to be found in the “Bulletin Officiel” of 1896 (p. 255), these Regulations are published at length and would seem, textually, to leave little room for criticism.

Were their application enforced it is abundantly clear that a situation such as that I found in existence at W* could not arise, and much of the general unhappiness and distress of the natives I witnessed on all sides would disappear along with the fines and much also of the “prestations,” within the first month of the translation into action of these Regulations.

One paragraph only need here be cited to emphasize the bearing and import of these remarks:--

“Les agents doivent se souvenir que les peines disciplinaires
prévues par le règlement de discipline militaire ne sont
applicables qu’aux recrutés militaires, uniquement pour des
infractions contre la discipline, et dans les conditions
spécialement prévues par le dit règlement.

“Elles ne sont applicables, sous aucune prétexte, aux serviteurs de
l’État non militaire ni aux indigènes, que ceux-ci soient ou non en
rébellion vis-à-vis de l’Etat.

“Ceux d’entre eux qui sont prévenus de délits ou crimes doivent
être déférés aux Tribunaux compétents et jugés conformément aux
lois.”