Chapter I: Their Basic Savagery

Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, [Sidenote: _A deep rolling bass._] Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM, With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision. I could not turn from their revel in derision. THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, [Sidenote: _More deliberate. Solemnly chanted._] CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. Then along that riverbank A thousand miles Tattooed cannibals danced in files; Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. [Sidenote: _A rapidly piling climax of speed and racket._] And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, “BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, Harry the uplands, Steal all the cattle, Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, Bing! Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” A roaring, epic, rag-time tune [Sidenote: _With a philosophic pause._] From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon. Death is an Elephant, Torch-eyed and horrible, [Sidenote: _Shrilly and with a heavily accented meter._] Foam-flanked and terrible. BOOM, steal the pygmies, BOOM, kill the Arabs, BOOM, kill the white men, HOO, HOO, HOO. [Sidenote: _Like the wind in the chimney._] Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. Hear how the demons chuckle and yell. Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. Listen to the creepy proclamation, Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:— “Be careful what you do, Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, [Sidenote: _All the o sounds very golden. Heavy accents very heavy. Light accents very light. Last line whispered._] And all of the other Gods of the Congo, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you.”