Chapter M: P. called on us to get out of the rain, and in conversation with (3)

“I was sorry not to see you as you passed down, and so missed the opportunity of conveying to you personally a lot of evidence as to the terrible maladministration practised in the past in the district. I saw the official at the post of E E*. He is the successor of the infamous wretch D E, of whom you heard so much yourself from the refugees at N*. This D E was in this district in ..., ..., and ..., and he it was that depopulated the country. His successor, M N, is very vehement in his denunciations of him, and declares that he will leave nothing undone that he can do to bring him to justice. He is now stationed at G G*, near our station at H H*. Of M N I have nothing to say but praise. In a very difficult position he has done wonderfully. The people are beginning to show themselves and gathering about the many posts under his charge. M N told me that when he took over the station at E E* from D E he visited the prison, and almost fainted, so horrible was the condition of the place and the poor wretches in it. He told me of many things he had heard of from the soldiers. Of D E shooting with his own hand man after man who had come with an insufficient quantity of rubber. Of his putting several one behind the other and shooting them all with one cartridge. Those who accompanied me, also heard from the soldiers many frightful stories and abundant confirmation of what was told us at N* about the taking to D E of the organs of the men slain by the sentries of the various posts. I saw a letter from the present officer at F F* to M N, in which he upbraids him for not using more vigorous means, telling him to talk less and shoot more, and reprimanding him for not killing more than one in a district under his care where there was a little trouble. M N is due in Belgium in about three months, and says he will land one day and begin denouncing his predecessor the next. I received many favours from him, and should be sorry to injure him in any way.... He has already accepted a position in one of the Companies, being unable to continue longer in the service of the State. I have never seen in all the different parts of the State which I have visited a neater station, or a district more under control than that over which this M N presides. He is the M N the people of N* told us of, who they said was kind.

“If I can give you any more information, or if there are any questions you would like to put to me, I shall be glad to serve you, and through you these persecuted people.”

From a separate communication, I extract the following paragraphs:--

“...I heard of some half-dozen L* who were anxious to visit their old home, and would be willing to go with me; so, after procuring some necessary articles in the shape of provisions and barter, I started from our post at N*. It was the end of the dry season, and many of the water-courses were quite dry, and during some days we even found the lack of water somewhat trying. The first two days’ travelling was through alternating forest and grass plain, our guides, as far as possible, avoiding the villages.... Getting fresh guides from a little village, we got into a region almost entirely forested, and later descended into a gloomy valley still dripping from the rain. According to our guides we should soon be through this, but it was not until the afternoon of the second day after entering that we once more emerged from the gloom. Several times we lost the track, and I had little inclination to blame the guides, for several times the undergrowth and a species of thorn palm were trodden down in all directions by the elephants. It would seem to be a favourite hunting ground of theirs, and once we got very close to a large herd who went off at a furious pace, smashing down the small trees, trumpeting, and making altogether a most terrifying noise. The second night in this forest we came across, when looking for the track, a little village of runaways from the rubber district. When assured of our friendliness they took us in and gave us what shelter they could. During the night another tornado swept the country and blew down a rotten tree, some branches of which fell in amongst my tent and the little huts in which some of the boys were sleeping. It was another most narrow escape.

“Early the next day we were conducted by one of the men of this village to the right road, and very soon found ourselves travelling along a track which had evidently been, at only a recent date, opened up by a number of natives. ‘What was it?’ ‘Oh! it is the road along which we used to carry rubber to the white men.’ ‘But why used to?’ ‘Oh, all the people have either run away, or have been killed or died of starvation, and so there is no one to get rubber any longer.’

“That day we made a very long march, being nearly nine and a-half hours walking, and passing through several other large depopulated districts. On all sides were signs of a very recent large population, but all was as quiet as death, and buffaloes roamed at will amongst the still growing manioc and bananas. It was a sad day, and when, as the sun was setting, we came upon a large State post we were plunged into still greater grief. True, there was a comfortable house at our service, and houses for all the party; but we had not been long there before we found that we had reached the centre of what was once a very thickly populated region, known as C C*, from which many refugees in the neighbourhood of G* had come. It was here a white man, known by the name of D E, lived.... He came to the district, and, after seven months of diabolical work, left it a waste. Some of the stories current about him are not fit to record here, but the native evidence is so consistent and so universal that it is difficult to disbelieve that murder and rapine on a large scale were carried on here. His successor, a man of a different nature, and much liked by the people, after more than two and a-half years has succeeded in winning back to the side of the State post a few natives, and there I saw them in their wretched little huts, hardly able to call their lives their own in the presence of the new white man (myself), whose coming among them had set them all a-wondering. From this there was no fear of losing the track. For many miles it was a broad road, from 6 to 10 feet in width, and wherever there was a possibility of water settling logs were laid down. Some of these viaducts were miles in length, and must have entailed immense labour; whilst rejoicing in the great facility with which we could continue our journey, we could not help picturing the many cruel scenes which, in all probability, were a constant accompaniment to the laying of these huge logs. I wish to emphasize as much as possible the desolation and emptiness of the country we passed through. That it was only very recently a well-populated country, and, as things go out here, rather more densely than usual, was very evident. After a few hours we came to a State rubber post. In nearly every instance these posts are most imposing, some of them giving rise to the supposition that several white men were residing in them. But in only one did we find a white man--the successor of D E. At one place I saw lying about in the grass surrounding the post, which is built on the site of several very large towns, human bones, skulls, and, in some places, complete skeletons. On inquiring the reason for this unusual sight: ‘Oh!’ said my informant, ‘When the bambote (soldiers) were sent to make us cut rubber there were so many killed we got tired of burying, and sometimes when we wanted to bury we were not allowed to.’

“‘But why did they kill you so?’

“‘Oh! sometimes we were ordered to go, and the sentry would find us preparing food to eat while in the forest, and he would shoot two or three to hurry us along. Sometimes we would try and do a little work on our plantations, so that when the harvest time came we should have something to eat, and the sentry would shoot some of us to teach us that our business was not to plant but to get rubber. Sometimes we were driven off to live for a fortnight in the forest without any food and without anything to make a fire with, and many died of cold and hunger. Sometimes the quantity brought was not sufficient, and then several would be killed to frighten us to bring more. Some tried to run away, and died of hunger and privation in the forest in trying to avoid the State posts.’

“‘But,’ said I, ‘if the sentries killed you like that, what was the use? You could not bring more rubber when there were fewer people.’

“‘Oh! as to that, we do not understand it. These are the facts.’

“And looking around on the scene of desolation, on the untended farms and neglected palms, one could not but believe that in the main the story was true. From State sentries came confirmation and particulars even more horrifying, and the evidence of a white man as to the state of the country--the unspeakable condition of the prisons at the State posts--all combined to convince me over and over again that, during the last seven years, this ‘domaine privé’ of King Leopold has been a veritable ‘hell on earth.’

“The present régime seems to be more tolerable. A small payment is made for the rubber now brought in. A little salt--say a pennyworth--for 2 kilogrammes of rubber, worth in Europe from 6 to 8 fr. The collection is still compulsory, but, compared with what has gone before, the natives consider themselves fairly treated. There is a coming together of families and communities and the re-establishment of villages; but oh! in what sadly diminished numbers, and with what terrible gaps in the families.... Near a large State post we saw the only large and apparently normal village we came across in all the three weeks we spent in the district. One was able to form here some estimate of what the population was before the advent of the white man and the search for rubber....”

* * * * *

It will be observed that the devastated region whence had come the refugees I saw at N*, comprises a part of the “Domaine de la Couronne.”

Inclosure 2 in No. 3.

(See p. 29.)

(A.)

_The Rev. J. Whitehead to Governor-General of Congo State._

Dear Sir,

_Baptist Missionary Society, Lukolela, July 28, 1903._