Chapter M: P. called on us to get out of the rain, and in conversation with (2)

“That it is just to take into account that, by the correspondence produced in the case, the chiefs of the Concession Company have, if not by formal orders, at least by their example and their tolerance, induced their agents to take no account whatever of the rights, property, and lives of the natives; to use the arms and the soldiers which should have served for their defence and the maintenance of order to force the natives to furnish them with produce and to work for the Company, as also to pursue as rebels and outlaws those who sought to escape from the requisitions imposed upon them.... That, above all, the fact that the arrest of women and their detention, to compel the villages to furnish both produce and workmen, was tolerated and admitted even by certain of the administrative authorities of the region.”

I had gathered at the time of this finding of the Boma High Court that steps had then been taken to make it everywhere effective and to insure obedience to the law in this respect, and that a recurrence of the illegalities brought to light in the Mongala region had been rendered impossible in any part of the Congo State. From what I saw during the few days spent in the A.B.I.R. Concession, and again outside its limits in the Lower Lulongo, it seemed to be clear that the action taken by the authorities nearly three years ago could not have produced the results undoubtedly then desired.

On my leaving Bongandanga on the 3rd September I returned down the Lopori and Lulongo Rivers, arriving at J**. The following day, about 9 at night, some natives of the neighbourhood came to see me, bringing with them a lad of about 16 years of age whose right hand was missing. His name was X and his relatives said they came from K**, a village on the opposite side of the river some few miles away. As it was late at night there was some difficulty in obtaining a translation of their statements, but I gathered that X’s hand had been cut off in K** by a sentry of the La Lulanga Company, who was, or had been, quartered there. They said that this sentry, at the time that he had mutilated X, had also shot dead one of the chief men of the town. X, in addition to this mutilation, had been shot in the shoulder blade, and, as a consequence, was deformed. On being shot it was said he had fallen down insensible, and the sentry had then cut off his hand, alleging that he would take it to the Director of the Company at Mampoko. When I asked if this had been done the natives replied that they believed that the hand had only been carried part of the way to Mampoko and then thrown away. They did not think the white man had seen it. They went on to say that they had not hitherto made any complaint of this. They declared they had seen no good object in complaining of a case of this kind since they did not hope any good would result to them. They then went on to say that a younger boy than X, at the beginning of this year (as near as they could fix the date at either the end of January or the beginning of February), had been mutilated in a similar way by a sentry of the same trading Company, who was still quartered in their town, and that when they had wished to bring this latter victim with them the sentry had threatened to kill him and that the boy was now in hiding. They begged that I would myself go back with them to their village and ascertain that they were speaking the truth. I thought it my duty to listen to this appeal, and decided to return with them on the morrow to their town. In the morning, when about to start for K**, many people from the surrounding country came in to see me. They brought with them three individuals who had been shockingly wounded by gun fire, two men and a very small boy, not more than 6 years of age, and a fourth--a boy child of 6 or 7--whose right hand was cut off at the wrist. One of the men, who had been shot through the arm, declared that he was Y of L**, a village situated some miles away. He declared that he had been shot as I saw under the following circumstances: the soldiers had entered his town, he alleged, to enforce the due fulfilment of the rubber tax due by the community. These men had tied him up and said that unless he paid 1,000 brass rods to them they would shoot him. Having no rods to give them they had shot him through the arm and had left him. The soldiers implicated he said were four whose names were given me. They were, he believed, all employés of the La Lulanga Company and had come from Mampoko. At the time when he, Y, was shot through the arm the Chief of his town came up and begged the soldiers not to hurt him, but one of them, a man called Z, shot the Chief dead. No white man was with these sentries, or soldiers, at the time. Two of them, Y said, he believed had been sent or taken to Coquilhatville. Two of them--whom he named--he said were still at Mampoko. The people of L** had sent to tell the white man at Mampoko of what his soldiers had done. He did not know what punishment, if any, the soldiers had received, for no inquiry had since been made in L**, nor had any persons in that town been required to testify against their aggressors. This man was accompanied by four other men of his town. These four men all corroborated Y’s statement.

These people were at once followed by two men of M**, situated, they said, close to K**, and only a few miles distant. They brought with them a full-grown man named A A, whose arm was shattered and greatly swollen through the discharge of a gun, and a small boy named B B, whose left arm was broken in two places from two separate gun shots--the wrist being shattered and the hand wobbling about loose and quite useless. The two men made the following statement: That their town, like all the others in the neighbourhood, was required to furnish a certain quantity of india-rubber fortnightly to the head-quarters of the La Lulanga Company at Mampoko; that at the time these outrages were committed, which they put at less than a year previously, a man named C C was a sentry of that Company quartered in their village; that they two now before me had taken the usual fortnight’s rubber to Mampoko. On returning to M** they found that C C, the sentry, had shot dead two men of the town named D D and E E, and had tied up this man A A and the boy B B, now before me, to two trees. The sentry said that this was to punish the two men for having taken the rubber to Mampoko without having first shown it to him and paid him a commission on it. The two men asserted that they had at once returned to Mampoko, and had begged the Director of the Company to return with them to M** and see what his servants had done. But, they alleged, he had refused to comply with their request. On getting back to their town they then found that the man A A and the child B B were still tied to the trees, and had been shot in the arms as I now saw. On pleading with the sentry to release these two wounded individuals, he had required a payment of 2,000 brass rods (100 fr.). One of the two men stayed to collect this money, and another returned to Mampoko to again inform the Director of what had been done. The two men declared that nothing was done to the sentry C C, but that the white man said that if the people behaved badly again he was to punish them. The sentry C C, they declared, remained some time longer in M**, and they do not now know where he is.

These people were immediately followed by a number of natives who came before me bringing a small boy of not more than 7 years of age, whose right hand was gone at the wrist. This child, whose name was F F, they had brought from the village of N**. They stated that some years ago (they could not even approximately fix the date save by indicating that F F was only just able to run) N** had been attacked by several sentries of the La Lulanga Company. This was owing to their failure in supplying a sufficiency of india-rubber. They did not know whether these sentries had been sent by any European, but they knew all their names, and the Chief of them was one called G G. G G had shot dead the Chief of their town, and the people had run into the forest. The sentries pursued them, and G G had knocked down the child F F with the butt of his gun and had then cut off his hand. They declared that the hand of the dead man and of this boy F F had then been carried away by the sentries. The sentries who did this belonged to the La Lulanga Company’s factory at O**. The man who appeared with F F went on to say that they had never complained about it, save to the white man who had then been that Company’s agent at O**. They had not thought of complaining to the Commissaire of the district. Not only was he far away, but they were afraid they would not be believed, and they thought the white men only wished for rubber, and that no good could come of pleading with them.

At the same time a number of men followed, with the request that I would listen to them. W declared that their town P**, which had formerly been on the north bank of the X** River (where I had myself seen it), had now been transferred by force to the south bank, close to the factory at Q**. He said that this act of compulsory transference was the direct act of the Commissaire-Général of the ... district. The Commissaire had visited P** on his steamer, and had ordered the people of that town to work daily at Q** for the La Lulanga factory. W had replied that it was too far for the women of P** to go daily to Q** as was required; but the Commissaire, in reply, had taken fifty women and carried them away with him. The women were taken to Q**. Two men were taken at the same time. To get these women back, W went on to say, he and his people had to pay a fine of 10,000 brass rods (500 fr.). They had paid this money to the Commissaire-Général himself. They had then been ordered by the Commissaire to abandon their town, since it lay too far from the factory, and build a fresh town close to Q**, so that they might be at hand for the white man’s needs. This they had been forced to do--many of them were taken across by force. It was about two years ago W thought that this deportation had been effected, and they now came to beg that I would use my influence with the local authorities to permit their return to their abandoned home. Where they were now situated close to Q** they were most unhappy, and they only desired to be allowed to return to the former site of P**. They have to take daily to Q** the following:--

10 baskets gum-copal.
1,000 long canes (termed “ngodji”), which grow in the swamps, and are
used in thatching and roofing.
500 bamboos for building.

Each week they are required to deliver at the factory--

200 rations of kwanga.
120 rations of fish.

In addition, fifty women are required each morning to go to the factory and work there all day. They complained that the remuneration given for these services was most inadequate, and that they were continually beaten. When I asked the Chief W why he had not gone to D F to complain if the sentries beat him or his people, opening his mouth he pointed to one of the teeth which was just dropping out, and said: “That is what I got from the D F four days ago when I went to tell him what I now say to you.” He added that he was frequently beaten, along with others of his people, by the white man.

One of the men with him, who gave his name as H H, said that two weeks ago the white man at Q** had ordered him to serve as one of the porters of his hammock on a journey he proposed taking inland. H H was then just completing the building of a new house, and excused himself on this ground, but offered to fetch a friend as a substitute. The Director of the Company had, in answer to this excuse, burnt down his house, alleging that he was insolent. He had had a box of cloth and some ducks in the house--in fact, all his goods, and they were destroyed in the fire. The white man then caused him to be tied up, and took him with him inland, and loosed him when he had to carry the hammock.

Other people were waiting, desirous of speaking with me, but so much time was taken in noting the statements already made that I had to leave, if I hoped to reach K** at a reasonable hour. I proceeded in a canoe across the Lulongo and up a tributary to a landing-place which seemed to be about ... miles from I**. Here, leaving the canoes, we walked for a couple of miles through a flooded forest to reach the village. I found here a sentry of the La Lulanga Company and a considerable number of natives. After some little delay a boy of about 15 years of age appeared, whose left arm was wrapped up in a dirty rag. Removing this, I found the left hand had been hacked off by the wrist, and that a shot hole appeared in the fleshy part of the forearm. The boy, who gave his name as I I, in answer to my inquiry, said that a sentry of the La Lulanga Company now in the town had cut off his hand. I proceeded to look for this man, who at first could not be found, the natives to a considerable number gathering behind me as I walked through the town. After some delay the sentry appeared, carrying a cap-gun. The boy, whom I placed before him, then accused him to his face of having mutilated him. The men of the town, who were questioned in succession, corroborated the boy’s statement. The sentry, who gave his name as K K, could make no answer to the charge. He met it by vaguely saying some other sentry of the Company had mutilated I I; his predecessor, he said, had cut off several hands, and probably this was one of the victims. The natives around said that there were two other sentries at present in the town, who were not so bad as K K, but that he was a villain. As the evidence against him was perfectly clear, man after man standing out and declaring he had seen the act committed, I informed him and the people present that I should appeal to the local authorities for his immediate arrest and trial. In the course of my interrogatory several other charges transpired against him. These were of a minor nature, consisting of the usual characteristic acts of blackmailing, only too commonly reported on all sides. One man said that K K had tied up his wife and only released her on payment of 1,000 rods. Another man said that K K had robbed him of two ducks and a dog. These minor offences K K equally demurred to, and again said that I I had been mutilated by some other sentry, naming several. I took the boy back with me and later brought him to Coquilhatville, where he formally charged K K with the crime, alleging to the Commandant, who took his statement, through a special Government interpreter, in my presence, that it had been done “on account of rubber.” I have since been informed that, acting on my request, the authorities at Coquilhatville had arrested K K, who presumably will be tried in due course. A copy of my notes taken in K**, where I I charged K K before me, is appended (Inclosure 6).[18]

It was obviously impossible that I should visit all the villages of the natives who came to beg me to do so at J** or elsewhere during my journey, or to verify on the spot, as in the case of the boy, the statements they made. In that one case the truth of the charges preferred was amply demonstrated, and their significance was not diminished by the fact that, whereas this act of mutilation had been committed within a few miles of Q**, the head-quarters of a European civilizing agency, and the guilty man was still in their midst, armed with the gun with which he had first shot his victim (for which he could produce no licence when I asked for it, saying it was his employers’), no one of the natives of the terrorized town had attempted to report the occurrence. They had in the interval visited Mampoko each fortnight with the india-rubber from their district. There was also in their midst another mutilated boy X, whose hand had been cut off either by this or another sentry. The main waterway of the Lulongo River lay at their doors, and on it well nigh every fortnight a Government steamer had passed up and down stream on its way to bring the india-rubber of the A.B.I.R. Company to Coquilhatville. They possessed, too, some canoes; and, if all other agencies of relief were closed, the territorial tribunal at Coquilhatville lay open to them, and the journey to it down stream from their village could have been accomplished in some twelve hours. It was no greater journey, indeed, than many of the towns I had elsewhere visited were forced to undertake each week or fortnight to deliver supplies to their local tax collectors. The fact that no effort had been made by these people to secure relief from their unhappy situation impelled me to believe that a very real fear of reporting such occurrences actually existed among them. That everything asserted by such a people, under such circumstances, is strictly true I should in no wise assert. That discrepancies must be found in much alleged by such rude savages, to one whose sympathies they sought to awaken, must equally be admitted. But the broad fact remained that their previous silence said more than their present speech. In spite of contradictions, and even seeming misstatements, it was clear that these men were stating either what they had actually seen with their eyes or firmly believed in their hearts. No one viewing their unhappy surroundings or hearing their appeals, no one at all cognizant of African native life or character, could doubt that they were speaking, in the main, truly; and the unhappy conviction was forced upon me that in the many forest towns behind the screen of trees, which I could not visit, these people were entitled to expect that a civilized administration should be represented among them by other agents than the savages euphemistically termed “forest guards.”

The number of these “forest guards” employed in the service of the various Concession Companies on the Congo must be very considerable; but it is not only the Concession Companies which employ “forest guards,” for I found many of these men in the service of the La Lulanga Company, which is neither a Concession Company nor endowed with any “rights of police,” so far as I am aware. In the A.B.I.R. Concession there must be at least twenty stations directed by one or more European agents.

Each one of these “factories” has, with the permission of the Government, an armament of twenty-five rifles. According to this estimate of the A.B.I.R. factories, and adding the armament of the two steamers that Company possesses, it will be found that this one Concession Company employs 550 rifles, with a supply of cartridges not, I believe, as yet legally fixed. These rifles are supposed by law not to be taken from the limits of the factories, whereas the “sentries” or “forest guards” are quartered in well-nigh every rubber-producing village of the entire Concession.

These men are each armed with a cap-gun, and the amount of ammunition they may individually expend would seem to have no legal limits. These cap-guns can be very effective weapons. On the Lower Lulongo I bought the skin of a fine leopard from a native hunter who had shot the animal the previous day. He produced a cap-gun and his ammunition for my inspection, and I learned from all the men around him that he alone had killed the beast with his own gun. This gun, he informed me, he had purchased some years ago from a former Commissaire of the Government at Coquilhatville, whose name he gave me.

It would be, I think, a moderate computation to put the number of cap-guns issued by the A.B.I.R. Company to its “sentries” as being in the proportion of six to one to the number of rifles allowed to each factory. These figures could be easily verified, but whatever the proportion may be of cap-guns to rifles, it is clear that the A.B.I.R. Society alone controls a force of some 500 rifles and a very large stock of cap-guns.

The other Concession Companies on the Congo have similar privileges, so that it might not be an excessive estimate to say that these Companies and the subsidiary ones (not enjoying rights of police) between them, direct an armed force of not less than 10,000 men.

Their “rights of police,” by the Circular of Governor-General Wahis of October 1900, were seemingly limited to the right to “requisition” the Government forces in their neighbourhood to maintain order within the limits of the Concession. That Circular, while it touched upon the arming of “Kapitas” with cap-guns, did not clearly define the jurisdiction of these men as a police force or their use of that weapon, but it is evident that the Government has been cognizant of, and is responsible for, the employment of these armed men. By a Royal Decree, dated the 10th March, 1892, very clear enactments were promulgated dealing with the use of all fire-arms other than flint-locks. By the terms of this Decree all fire-arms and their munitions, other than flint-lock guns, were required, immediately upon importation, to be deposited in a depôt or private store placed under the control of the Government. Each weapon imported had to be registered upon its entry into the depôt and marked under the supervision of the Administration, and could not be withdrawn thence save on the presentation of a permit to carry arms. These permits to carry arms were liable each to a tax of 20 fr., and could be withdrawn in case of abuse. By an Ordinance of the Governor-General of the Congo State, dated the 16th June, 1892, various Regulations making locally effective the foregoing Decree were published. It is clear that the responsibility for the extensive employment of men armed with cap-guns by the various commercial Companies on the Upper Congo rests with the governing authority, which either by law permitted it or did not make effective its own laws.

The six natives brought before me at I** had all of them been wounded by gun-fire, and the guns in question could only have come into the hands of their assailants through the permission or the neglect of the authorities. Two of these injured individuals were children--one of them certainly not more than 7 years of age--and the other a child (a boy of about the same age), whose arm was shattered by gun-fire at close quarters. Whatever truth there might be in the direct assertions of these people and their relatives, who attested that the attacks upon them had been made by sentries of the La Lulanga Company, it was clear that they had all been attacked by men using guns, which a law already eleven years old had clearly prohibited from being issued, save in special cases, and “to persons who could offer sufficient guarantee that the arms and the munitions which should be delivered to them would not be given, ceded, or sold to third parties”--and, moreover, under a licence which could at any time be withdrawn.

Three of these injured individuals, subsequent to the initial attack upon them, had had their hands cut off--in each case, as it was alleged to me, by a sentry of the La Lulanga Company. In the one case I could alone personally investigate--that of the boy I I--I found this accusation proved on the spot, without seemingly a shadow of doubt existing as to the guilt of the accused sentry. These six wounded and mutilated individuals came from villages in the immediate vicinity of I**, and both from their lips and from those of others who came to me from a greater distance it was clear that these were not the only cases in that neighbourhood. One man, coming from a village 20 miles away, begged me to return with him to his home, where, he asserted, eight of his fellow-villagers had recently been killed by sentries placed there in connection with the fortnightly yield of india-rubber. But my stay at I** was necessarily a brief one. I had not time to do more than visit the one village of R** and in that village I had only time to investigate the charge brought by I I. The country is, moreover, largely swampy forest, and the difficulties of getting through it are very great. A regularly equipped expedition would have been needed, and the means of anything like an exhaustive inquiry were not at my disposal. But it seemed painfully clear to me that the facts brought to my knowledge in a three days’ stay at I** would amply justify the most exhaustive inquiry being made into the employment of armed men in that region, and the use to which they put the weapons intrusted to them--ostensibly as the authorized dependants of commercial undertakings. From what I had observed in the A.B.I.R. Concession it is equally clear to me that no inquiry could be held to have been exhaustive which did not embrace the territories of that Company also.

The system of quartering Government soldiers in the villages, once universal, has to-day been widely abandoned; but the abuses once prevalent under this head spring to life in this system of “forest guards,” who, over a wide area, represent the only form of local gendarmerie known. But that the practice of employing Government native soldiers in isolated posts has not disappeared is admitted by the highest authorities.

A Circular on this subject, animadverting on the disregard of the reiterated instructions issued, which had forbidden the employment of black troops unaccompanied by a European officer, was dispatched by the Governor-General as recently as the 7th September, 1903, during the period I was actually on the Upper Congo. In this Circular the Commandants and officers of the Force Publique are required to rigorously observe the oft-repeated instructions on this head, and it is pointed out that, in spite of the most imperative orders forbidding the employment of black soldiers by themselves on the public service--“on continue en maints endroits à pratiquer ce déplorable usage.” Copy of this Circular is appended (Inclosure 7).[19]

From my observation of the districts I travelled on in the Upper Congo, it would seem well-nigh impossible for European officers to be always with the soldiers who may be sent on minor expeditions. The number of officers is limited; they have much to do in drilling their troops, and in camp and station life, while the territory to be exploited is vast. The ramifications of the system of taxation, outlined in the foregoing sketch of it, show it to be of a wide-spread character, and since a more or less constant pressure has to be exercised to keep the taxpayers up to the mark, and over a very wide field, a certain amount of dependance upon the uncontrolled actions of native soldiers (who are the only regular police in the country) must be permitted those responsible for the collection of the tax. The most important article of native taxation in the Upper Congo is unquestionably rubber, and to illustrate the importance attaching by their superiors to the collection and augmentation of this tax, the Circular of Governor-General Wahis, addressed to the Commissionaires de District and Chefs de Zône on the 29th March, 1901, was issued. A copy of that Circular is attached (Inclosure 8).[20]

The instructions this Circular conveys would be excellent if coming from the head of a trading house to his subordinates, but addressed, as they are, by a Governor-General to the principal officers of his administration, they reveal a somewhat limited conception of public duty. Instead of their energies being directed to the government of their districts, the officers therein addressed could not but feel themselves bound to consider the profitable exploitation of india-rubber as one of the principal functions of Government. Taken into account the interpretation these officials must put upon the positive injunctions of their chief, there can be little doubt that they would look upon the profitable production of india-rubber as among the most important of their duties. The praiseworthy official would be he whose district yielded the best and biggest supply of that commodity; and, succeeding in this, the means whereby he brought about the enhanced value of that yield would not, it may be believed, be too closely scrutinized.

When it is remembered that the reprimanded officials are the embodiment of all power in their districts, and that the agents they are authorized to employ are an admittedly savage soldiery, the source whence spring the unhappiness and unrest of the native communities I passed through on the Upper Congo need not be sought far beyond the policy dictating this Circular.

I decided, owing to pressure of other duties, to return from Coquilhatville to Stanley Pool. The last incident of my stay in the Upper Congo occurred on the night prior to my departure. Late that night a man came with some natives of the S** district, represented as his friends, who were fleeing from their homes, and whom he begged me to carry with me to the French territory at Lukolela. These were L L of T** and seven others. L L stated that, owing to his inability to meet the impositions of the Commissaire of the S** district, he had, with his family, abandoned his home, and was seeking to reach Lukolela. He had already come 80 miles down stream by canoe, but was now hiding with friends in one of the towns near Coquilhatville. Part of the imposition laid upon his town consisted of two goats, which had to be supplied each month for the white man’s table at S**. As all the goats in his neighbourhood had long since disappeared in meeting these demands, he could now only satisfy this imposition by buying in inland districts such goats as were for sale. For these he had to pay 3,000 rods each (150 fr.), and as the Government remuneration amounted to only 100 rods (5 fr.) per goat, he had no further means of maintaining the supply. Having appealed in vain for the remission of this burden, no other course was left him but to fly. I told this man I regretted I could not help him, that his proper course was to appeal for relief to the authorities of the district; and this failing, to seek the higher authorities at Boma. This, he said, was clearly impossible for him to do. On the last occasion when he had sought the officials at S**, he had been told that if his next tax were not forthcoming he should go into the “chain gang.” He added that a neighbouring Chief who had failed in this respect had just died in the prison gang, and that such would be his fate if he were caught. He added that, if I disbelieved him, there were those who could vouch for his character and the truth of his statement; and I told him and his friend that I should inquire in that quarter, but that it was impossible for me to assist a fugitive. I added, however, that there was no law on the Congo Statute Book which forbade him or any other man from travelling freely to any part of the country, and his right to navigate in his canoe the Upper Congo was as good as mine in my steamer or any one else’s. He and his people left me at midnight, saying that unless they could get away with me they did not think it possible they could succeed in gaining Lukolela. A person at T**, to whom I referred this statement, informed me that L L’s statement was true. He said: What L L told you, _re_ price of goats, was perfectly true. At U** they are 3,000, and here they are 2,500 to 3,000 rods. Ducks are from 200 to 300 rods. Fowls are from 60 to 100 rods. _Re_ “dying in the chains,” he had every reason to fear this, for recently two Chiefs died in the chain, viz., the Chief of a little town above U**; his crime: because he did not move his houses a few hundred yards to join them to ... as quickly as the Commissaire thought he should do. Second, the Chief of T**; crime: because he did not go up every fortnight with the tax. These two men were chained together and made to carry heavy loads of bricks and water, and were frequently beaten by the soldiers in charge of them. There are witnesses to prove this.

Leaving the township of Coquilhatville on the 11th September, I reached Stanley Pool on the 15th September.

I have, &c. (Signed) R. CASEMENT.

Inclosure 1 in No. 3.

(See p. 29.)

_Notes on Refugee Tribes encountered in July 1903._

Hearing of the L* refugees from I*, I decided to visit the nearest Settlement of these fugitives, some 20 miles away, to see them for myself.

At N* found large town of K*, and scattered through it many small settlements of L* refugees. The town of N* consists approximately of seventy-one K* houses, and seventy-three occupied by L*. These latter seemed industrious, simple folk, many weaving palm fibre into mats or native cloth; others had smithies, working brass wire into bracelets, chains, and anklets; some iron-workers making knives. Sitting down in one of these blacksmith’s sheds, the five men at work ceased and came over to talk to us. I counted ten women, six grown-up men, and eight lads and women in this one shed of L*. I then asked them to tell me why they had left their homes. Three of the men sat down in front of me, and told a tale which I cannot think can be true, but it seemed to come straight from their hearts. I repeatedly asked certain parts to be gone over again while I wrote in my note-book. The fact of my writing down and asking for names, &c., seemed to impress them, and they spoke with what certainly impressed me as being great sincerity.

I asked, first, why they had left their homes, and had come to live in a strange far-off country among the K*, where they owned nothing, and were little better than servitors. All, when this question was put, women as well, shouted out, “On account of the rubber tax levied by the Government posts.”

I asked particularly the names of the places whence they had come. They answered they were from V**. Other L* refugees here at N* were W**, others again were X**, but all had fled from their homes for the same reason--it was the “rubber tax.”

I asked then how this tax was imposed. One of them, who had been hammering out an iron neck collar on my arrival, spoke first. He said:--

“I am N N. These other two beside me are O O and P P, all of us Y**. From our country each village had to take twenty loads of rubber. These loads were big: they were as big as this....” (Producing an empty basket which came nearly up to the handle of my walking-stick.) “That was the first size. We had to fill that up, but as rubber got scarcer the white man reduced the amount. We had to take these loads in four times a-month.”

_Q._ “How much pay did you get for this?”

_A._ (Entire audience.) “We got no pay! We got nothing!”

And then N N, whom I asked, again said:--

“Our village got cloth and a little salt, but not the people who did the work. Our Chiefs eat up the cloth; the workers got nothing. The pay was a fathom of cloth and a little salt for every big basket full, but it was given to the Chief, never to the men. It used to take ten days to get the twenty baskets of rubber--we were always in the forest and then when we were late we were killed. We had to go further and further into the forest to find the rubber vines, to go without food, and our women had to give up cultivating the fields and gardens. Then we starved. Wild beasts--the leopards--killed some of us when we were working away in the forest, and others got lost or died from exposure and starvation, and we begged the white man to leave us alone, saying we could get no more rubber, but the white men and their soldiers said: ‘Go! You are only beasts yourselves, you are nyama (meat).’ We tried, always going further into the forest, and when we failed and our rubber was short, the soldiers came to our towns and killed us. Many were shot, some had their ears cut off; others were tied up with ropes around their necks and bodies and taken away. The white men sometimes at the posts did not know of the bad things the soldiers did to us, but it was the white men who sent the soldiers to punish us for not bringing in enough rubber.”

Here P P took up the tale from N N:--

“We said to the white men, ‘We are not enough people now to do what you want us. Our country has not many people in it and we are dying fast. We are killed by the work you make us do, by the stoppage of our plantations, and the breaking up of our homes.’ The white man looked at us and said: ‘There are lots of people in Mputu’” (Europe, the white man’s country). “‘If there are lots of people in the white man’s country there must be many people in the black man’s country.’ The white man who said this was the chief white man at F F*, his name was A B, he was a very bad man. Other white men of Bula Matadi who had been bad and wicked were B C, C D, and D E.” “These had killed us often, and killed us by their own hands as well as by their soldiers. Some white men were good. These were E F, F G, G H, H I, I K, K L.”

These ones told them to stay in their homes and did not hunt and chase them as the others had done, but after what they had suffered they did not trust more any one’s word, and they had fled from their country and were now going to stay here, far from their homes, in this country where there was no rubber.

_Q._ “How long is it since you left your homes, since the big trouble you speak of?”

_A._ “It lasted for three full seasons, and it is now four seasons since we fled and came into the K* country.”

_Q._ “How many days is it from N* to your own country?”

_A._ “Six days of quick marching. We fled because we could not endure the things done to us. Our Chiefs were hanged, and we were killed and starved and worked beyond endurance to get rubber.”

_Q._ “How do you know it was the white men themselves who ordered these cruel things to be done to you? These things must have been done without the white man’s knowledge by the black soldiers.”

_A._ (P P): “The white men told their soldiers: ‘You kill only women; you cannot kill men. You must prove that you kill men.’ So then the soldiers when they killed us” (here he stopped and hesitated, and then pointing to the private parts of my bulldog--it was lying asleep at my feet), he said: “then they cut off those things and took them to the white men, who said: ‘It is true, you have killed men.’”

_Q._ “You mean to tell me that any white man ordered your bodies to be mutilated like that, and those parts of you carried to him?”

P P, O O, and all (shouting): “Yes! many white men. D E did it.”

_Q._ “You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after being shot?”

All (shouting out): “Nkoto! Nkoto!” (Very many! Very many!)

There was no doubt that these people were not inventing. Their vehemence, their flashing eyes, their excitement, was not simulated. Doubtless they exaggerated the numbers, but they were clearly telling what they knew and loathed. I was told that they often became so furious at the recollection of what had been done to them that they lost control over themselves. One of the men before me was getting into this state now.

I asked whether L* tribes were still running from their country, or whether they now stayed at home and worked voluntarily.

N N answered: “They cannot run away now--not easily; there are sentries in the country there between the Lake and this; besides, there are few people left.”

P P said: “We heard that letters came to the white men to say that the people were to be well treated. We heard that these letters had been sent by the big white men in ‘Mputu’ (Europe); but our white men tore up these letters, laughing, saying: ‘We are the “basango” and “banyanga” (fathers and mothers, _i.e._, elders). Those who write to us are only “bana” (children).’ Since we left our homes the white men have asked us to go home again. We have heard that they want us to go back, but we will not go. We are not warriors, and do not want to fight. We only want to live in peace with our wives and children, and so we stay here among the K*, who are kind to us, and will not return to our homes.”

_Q._ “Would you not like to go back to your homes? Would you not, in your hearts, all wish to return?”

_A._ (By many.) “We loved our country, but we will not trust ourselves to go back.”

P P: “Go, you white men, with the steamer to I*, and see what we have told you is true. Perhaps if other white men, who do not hate us, go there, Bula Matadi may stop from hating us, and we may be able to go home again.”

I asked to be pointed out any refugees from other tribes, if there were such, and they brought forward a lad who was a X**, and a man of the Z**. These two, answering me, said there were many with them from their tribes who had fled from their country.

* * * * *

Went on about fifteen minutes to another L* group of houses in the midst of the K* town. Found here mostly W**, an old Chief sitting in the open village Council-house with a Z** man and two lads. An old woman soon came and joined, and another man. The woman began talking with much earnestness. She said the Government had worked them so hard they had had no time to tend their fields and gardens, and they had starved to death. Her children had died; her sons had been killed. The two men, as she spoke, muttered murmurs of assent.

The old Chief said: “We used to hunt elephants long ago, there were plenty in our forests, and we got much meat; but Bula Matadi killed the elephant hunters because they could not get rubber, and so we starved. We were sent out to get rubber, and when we came back with little rubber we were shot.”

_Q._ “Who shot you?”

_A._ “The white men ... sent their soldiers out to kill us.”

_Q._ “How do you know it was the white man who sent the soldiers? It might be only these savage soldiers themselves.”

_A._ “No, no. Sometimes we brought rubber into the white man’s stations. We took rubber to D E’s station, E E*, and to F F* and to ...’s station. When it was not enough rubber the white man would put some of us in lines, one behind the other, and would shoot through all our bodies. Sometimes he would shoot us like that with his own hand; sometimes his soldiers would do it.”

_Q._ “You mean to say you were killed in the Government posts themselves by the Government white men themselves, or under their eyes?”

_A._ (Emphatically.) “We were killed in the stations of the white men themselves. We were killed by the white man himself. We were shot before his eyes.”

The names D E, B C, and L M, were names I heard repeatedly uttered.

The Z** man said he, too, had fled; now he lived at peace with the K*.

The abnormal refugee population in this one K* town must equal the actual K* population itself. On every hand one finds these refugees. They seem, too, to pass busier lives than their K* hosts, for during all the hot hours of the afternoon, wherever I walked through the town--and I went all through N* until the sun set--I found L* weavers, or iron and brass workers, at work.

Slept at M M’s house. Many people coming to talk to us after dark.

Left N* about 8 to return to the Congo bank. On the way back left the main path and struck into one of the side towns, a village called A A*. This lies only some 4 or 5 miles from the river. Found here thirty-two L* houses with forty-three K*, so that the influx of fugitives here is almost equal to the original population. Saw many L*. All were frightened, and they and the K* were evidently so ill at ease that I did not care to pause. Spoke to one or two men only as we walked through the town. The L* drew away from us, but on looking back saw many heads popped out of doors of the houses we had passed.

Got back to steamer about noon.

* * * * *

Heard that L* came sometimes to M* from I*. I am now 100 miles (about) up-river from N*. Went into one of the M* country farm towns called B B*. Found on entering plantation two huts with five men and one woman, who I at once recognized by their head-dress as L*, like those at N*. The chief speaker, a young man named ... who lives at B B*. He seems about 22 or 23, and speaks with an air of frankness. He says: “The L* here and others who come to M*, come from a place C C*. It is connected with the lake by a stream. His own town in the district of C C* is D D*. C C* is a big district and had many people. They now bring the Government india-rubber, kwanga, and fowls, and work on broad paths connecting each village. His own village has to take 300 baskets of india-rubber. They get one piece of cotton cloth, called locally sanza, and no more.” (Note.--This cannot be true. He is doubtless exaggerating.) Four other men with him were wearing the rough palm-fibre cloth of the country looms, and they pointed to this as proof that they got no cloth for their labours. K K continuing said: “We were then killed for not bringing in enough rubber.”

_Q._ “You say you were killed for not bringing in rubber. Were you ever mutilated as proof that the soldiers had killed you?”

_A._ “When we were killed the white man was there himself. No proof was needed. Men and women were put in a line with a palm tree and were shot.”

Here he took three of the four men sitting down and put them one in line behind the other, and said: “The white men used to put us like that and shoot all with one cartridge. That was often done, and worse things.”

_Q._ “But how, if you now have to work so hard, are you yourselves able to come here to M* to see your friends?”

_A._ “We came away without the sentries or soldiers knowing, but when we get home we may have trouble.”

_Q._ “Do you know the L* who are now at N*?” (Here I gave the names of N N, O O, and P P.)

_A._ “Yes; many L* fled to that country. N N we know ran away on account of the things done to them by the Government white men. The K* and L* have always been friends. That is why the L* fled to them for refuge.”

_Q._ “Are there sentries or soldiers in your villages now?”

_A._ “In the chief villages there are always four soldiers with rifles. When natives go out into the forest to collect rubber they would leave one of their number behind to stay and protect the women. Sometimes the soldiers finding him thus refused to believe what he said, and killed him for shirking his work. This often happens.”

Asked how far it was from M* to their country they say three days’ journey, and then about two days more on to I* by water, or three if by land. They begged us to go to their country, they said: “We will show you the road, we will take you there, and you will see how things are, and that our country has been spoiled, and we are speaking the truth.”

Left them here and returned to the river bank.

* * * * *

The foregoing entries made at the time in my note-book seemed to me, if not false, greatly exaggerated, although the statements were made with every air of conviction and sincerity. I did not again meet with any more L* refugees, for on my return to G* I stayed only a few hours. A few days afterwards, while I was at Stanley Pool, I received further evidence in a letter of which the following is an extract:--

* * * * *