III

On the Congo I got my first glimpse of the native fashion in mourning. It is a survival of the biblical "sackcloth and ashes." As soon as a death occurs all the members of the family smear their faces and bodies with ashes or dirt. Even the babies show these rude symbols of woe. It gives the person thus adorned a weird and ghastly appearance. When ashes and dust are not available for this purpose, a substitute is found in filthy mud. The mourner is not permitted to wash throughout the entire period of grief, which ranges from thirty to ninety days.

Like the Southern Negro in America these African natives are not only born actors but have a keen sense of humour. They are quick to imitate the white man. If a Georgia darkey, for example, wants to abuse a member of his own race he delights to call him "a fool nigger." It is the last word in reproach. In the Congo when a native desires to express contempt for his fellow, he refers to him as a basingi, which means bush-man. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Up the Kasai I heard a story that admirably illustrates the native humour. A Belgian official much inclined to corpulency came out to take charge of a post. After the usual fashion, he received a native name the moment he arrived. It is not surprising that he became known as Mafutta Mingi. As soon as he learned what it meant he became indignant. Like most fat men he could not persuade himself that he was fat. He demanded that he be given another title, whereupon the local chief solemnly dubbed him Kiboko. The official was immediately appeased. He noticed that a broad smile invariably illumined the countenance of the person who addressed him in this way. On investigation he discovered that the word meant hippopotamus.

The Congo native delights in argument. Here you get another parallel with his American brother. A Bangala, for example, will talk for a week about five centimes. One day at Dima I heard a terrific shouting and exhorting down at the native market which is held twice a week. I was certain that someone was being murdered. When I arrived on the scene I saw a hundred men and women gesticulating wildly and in a great state of excitement. I learned that the wife of a wood-boy on a boat had either secreted or sold a scrap of soap, and her husband was not only berating her with his tongue but telling the whole community about it.

The chief function of most Belgian officials in the Congo is to preside at what is technically known as a "palaver." This word means conference but it actually develops into a free-for-all riotous protestation by the natives involved. They all want to talk at the same time and it is like an Irish debating society. Years ago each village had a "palaver ground," where the chief sat in solemn judgment on the disputes of his henchmen. Now the "palavers" are held before Government officers. Most of the "palavers" that I heard related to elopements. No matter how grievous was the offense of the male he invariably shifted the entire responsibility to the woman. He was merely emulating the ways of civilization.

Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa we not only stopped every night according to custom, but halted at not less than a dozen settlements to take on or deliver cargo. These stations resemble each other in that they are mainly a cluster of stores owned or operated by agents of various trading companies. Practically every post in the Congo has, in addition, a shop owned by a Portuguese. You find these traders everywhere. They have something of the spirit of adventure and the hardihood of their doughty ancestors who planted the flag of Portugal on the high seas back in that era when the little kingdom was a world power.

Some of them have been in the Congo for fifteen and twenty years without ever stirring outside its confines. On the steamer that took me to Europe from the Congo was a Portuguese who had lived in the bush for twenty-two years. When he got on the big steamer he was frightened at the noise and practically remained in his cabin throughout the entire voyage. As we neared France he told me that if he had realized beforehand the terror and tumult of the civilization that he had forgotten, he never would have departed from his jungle home. He was as shy as a wild animal.

One settlement, Basoko, has a tragic meaning for the Anglo-Saxon. Here died and lies buried, the gallant Grenfell. I doubt if exploration anywhere revealed a nobler character than this Baptist minister whose career has been so adequately presented by Sir Harry Johnston, and who ranks with Stanley and Livingstone as one of the foremost of African explorers. In the Congo evangelization has been fraught with a truly noble fortitude. When you see the handicaps that have beset both Catholic and Protestant missionaries you are filled with a new appreciation of their calling.

The most important stop of this trip was at Coquilhatville, named in honor of Captain Coquilhat, one of the most courageous of the early Belgian soldier-explorers. It was the original Equatorville (it is at the point where the Equator cuts the Congo), founded by Stanley when he established the series of stations under the auspices of the International African Association. Here dwells the Vice-Governor of the Equatorial Province. Near by is a botanical garden maintained by the Colonial Government and which contains specimens of all the flora of Central Africa.

At Coquilhatville I saw the first horse since I left Rhodesia and it was a distinct event. Except in the Kasai region it is impossible to maintain live stock in the Congo. The tsetse fly is the devastating agency. Apparently the only beasts able to withstand this scourge are goats and dogs. The few white men who live in Coquilhatville have been able to maintain five horses which are used by the so-called Riding Club. These animals provide the only exercise at the post. They are owned and ridden by the handful of Englishmen there. A man must drive himself to indulge in any form of outdoor sport along the equator. The climate is more or less enervating and it takes real Anglo-Saxon energy to resist the lure of the siesta or to remain in bed as long as possible.

Bolobo is a reminder of Stanley. He had more trouble here than at any of the many stations he set up in the Congo Free State in the early eighties. The natives were hostile, the men he left in charge proved to be inefficient, and on two occasions the settlement was burned to the ground. Today it is the seat of one of the largest and most prosperous of all the English Baptist Congo missions and is presided over by a Congo veteran, Dr. Stonelake. One feature of the work here is a manual training school for natives, who manufacture the same kind of wicker chairs that the tourist buys at Madeira.

The farther I travelled in the Congo the more deeply I became interested in the native habits and customs. Although cluttered with ignorance and superstition the barbaric mind is strangely productive of a rude philosophy which is expressed in a quaint folklore. Seasoned Congo travellers like Grenfell, Stanley, Ward, and Johnston have all recorded fascinating local legends. I heard many of these tales myself and I shall endeavour to relate the best.

Some of the most characteristic stories deal with the origin of death. Here is a Bangala tradition gathered by Grenfell and which runs as follows:

The Baluba version of the great mystery is set forth in this way:

The animal story has a high place in the legends of these peoples. They represent a combination of Kipling's Jungle Book, Aesop's Fables, and Br'er Rabbit. Nor do they fail to point a moral. Naturally, the elephant is a conspicuous feature in most of them. The tale of "The Elephant and the Shrew" will illustrate. Here it is:

The story of the elephant and the chameleon is equally interesting. One day the chameleon challenged the elephant to a race. The latter accepted the challenge and a meeting was arranged for the following morning. During the night the chameleon placed all his brothers from point to point along the length of the track where the race was to be run. When day came the elephant started. The chameleon quickly slipped behind without the elephant noticing. "Are you not tired?" asked the monster of the first chameleon he met. "Not at all," he replied, executing the same manœuvre as the former. This stratagem was renewed so many times that the elephant, tired out, gave up the contest and confessed himself beaten.

In the wilds, as in civilization, the relation between husband and wife, and more especially the downfall of the autocrat of the home, is a favorite subject for jest. From the northeastern corner of the Congo comes this illuminating story:

The Congo can ever reproduce its own version of the fable of "The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg." It is somewhat primitive but serves the same purpose. As told to the naked piccaninnies by the flickering camp-fires it runs thus:

To understand the significance of the story it must be understood that for many years beads have been one of the forms of currency in Central Africa. Formerly they were as important a detail in the purchase of a wife as copper and calico. The first piece of attire, if it may be designated by this name, that adorns the native baby after its entrance into the world is an anklet of blue beads. Later a strand of beads is placed round its loins.

When you have heard such stories as I have just related, you realize that despite his ignorance, appetite, and indolence, the Congo native has some desirable qualities. He is shiftless but not without human instincts. Nowhere are they better expressed than in his folklore.

IV

Two stops on the Congo River deserve special attention. In the Congo there began in 1911 an industry that will have an important bearing on the economic development of the Colony. It was the installation of the first plant of the Huileries du Congo Belge. This Company, which is an offshoot of the many Lever enterprises of England, resulted from the growing need of palm oil as a substitute for animal fat in soap-making. Lord Leverhulme, who was then Sir William Lever, obtained a concession for considerably more than a million acres of palm forests in the Congo. He began to open up so-called areas and install mills for boiling the fruit and drying the kernels. He now has eight areas, and two of them, Elizabetha and Alberta,—I visited both—are on the Congo River.

For hundreds of years the natives have gathered the palm fruit and extracted the oil. Under their method of manufacture the waste was enormous. The blacks threw away the kernel because they were unaware of the valuable substance inside. Lord Leverhulme was the first to organize the industry on a big and scientific basis and it has justified his confidence and expenditure.

Most people are familiar with the date and the cocoa-nut palms. From the days of the Bible they have figured in narrative and picture. The oil palm, on the other hand, is less known but much more valuable. It is the staff of life in the Congo and for that matter, practically all West Africa. Thousands of years ago its sap was used by the Egyptians for embalming the bodies of their kingly dead. Today it not only represents the most important agricultural industry of the Colony, having long since surpassed rubber as the premier product, but it has an almost bewildering variety of uses. It is food, drink and shelter. Out of the trunk the native extracts his wine; from the fruit, and this includes the kernel, are obtained oil for soap, salad dressing and margarine; the leaves provide a roof for the native houses; the fibre is made into mats, baskets or strings for fishing nets, while the wood goes into construction. Even the bugs that live on it are food for men.

The "H. C. B." as the Huileries du Congo Belge is more commonly known in the Congo, really performed a courageous act in exploitation when it set up shop in the remote regions and devoted itself to an absolutely fresh enterprise, so far as extensive development is concerned, at a time when the rich and profitable products of the country were rubber, ivory and copal. The company's initiative, therefore, instigated the trade in oleaginous products which is so conspicuous in the economic life of the country.

The installation at Alberta, while not so large as the Leverville area on the Kwilu River, will serve to show just what the corporation is doing. Five years ago this region was the jungle. Today it is the model settlement on the Congo River. The big brick office building stands on a brow of the hill overlooking the water. Not far away is the large mill where the palm fruit is reduced to oil and the kernels dried. Stretching away from the river is a long avenue of palms, flanked by the commodious brick bungalows of the white employes. The "H. C. B." maintains a store at each of its areas, where food and supplies are bought by the personnel. These stores are all operated by the Société d'Entreprises Commerciales au Congo Belge, known locally under the name of "Sedec," formed as its name indicated, with a view of benefiting by the great resources opened to commerce in the Colony.

For miles in every direction the Company has laid out extensive palm plantations. In the Alberta region twenty-five hundred acres are in course of cultivation in what is known as the Eastern Development, while sixteen hundred more acres are embodied in the Western development. An oil palm will bear fruit within seven years after the young tree is planted. The fruit comes in what is called a régime, which resembles a huge bunch of grapes. It is a thick cluster of palm fruit. Each fruit is about the size of a large date. The outer portion, the pericarp, is almost entirely yellow oil encased in a thick skin. Imbedded in this oil is the kernel, which contains an even finer oil. The fruit is boiled down and the kernel, after a drying process, is exported in bags to England, where it is broken open and the contents used for salad oil or margarine.

Before the war thousands of tons of palm oil and kernels were shipped from the West Coast of Africa to Germany every year. Now they are diverted to England where large kernel-crushing plants have been installed and the whole activity has become a British enterprise. With the eclipse of the German Colonial Empire in Africa it is not likely that she can regain this lost business.

The creation of new palmeries is merely one phase of the company's development. One of its largest tasks is to safeguard the immense natural palmeries on its concessions. The oil palm requires constant attention. The undergrowth spreads rapidly and if it is not removed is liable to impair the life of the tree. Thousands of natives are employed on this work. A large knife something like the Cuban machete is used.

Harvesting the régimes is a spectacular performance not without its element of danger. The régime grows at the top of the tree, usually a height of sixty or seventy-five feet and sometimes more. The native literally walks up the trunk with the help of a loop made from some stout vine which encircles him. Arriving at the top he fixes his feet against the trunk, leans against the loop which holds him fast, and hacks away at the régime. It falls with a heavy thud and woe betide the human being or the animal it strikes. The natives will not cut fruit in rainy weather because many have slipped on the wet bark and fallen to their death.

So wide is the Alberta fruit-producing area that a narrow-gauge railway is necessary to bring the fruit in to the mill. Along its line are various stations where the fruit is mobilized, stripped from the régime and sent down for refining in baskets. Each station has a superintendent who lives on the spot. The personnel of all the staff in the Congo is almost equally divided between British and Belgians.

While the "H. C. B." is the largest factor in the palm oil industry in the Congo, many tons of kernels are gathered every year by individuals who include thousands of natives. One reason why the savage takes naturally to this occupation is that it demands little work. All that he is required to do is to climb a tree in the jungle and lop off a régime. He uses the palm oil for his own needs or disposes of it to a member of his tribe and sells the kernels to the white man.

The "H. C. B." is independent of all other water transport in the Congo. Its river tonnage aggregates more than 6,000, and in addition it has many oil barges on the various rivers where its vessels ply. The capacity of some of the barges is 250 tons of oil. They are usually lashed to the side of the steamer. The decks of these barges are often piled high with bags of kernels and become a favorite sleeping place for the black voyagers for whom the thousands of insects that lurk in them have no terrors. No bug inflicts a sharper sting than these pests who make their habitat among the palm kernels.

One of my fellow passengers on the "Comte de Flandre" was I. F. Braham, the Associate Managing Director of the "H. C. B." in the Congo. Long the friend and companion in Liberia of Sir Harry Johnston, he was a most desirable and congenial companion. It was on his suggestion and invitation that I spent the week at Alberta and he shared the visit. Our hosts were Major and Mrs. Claude Wallace.

Major Wallace was the District Manager of the Alberta area and occupied a brick bungalow on the bank of the river. He is a pioneer in exploration in the French Congo and Liberia and went almost straight from the battlefields of France, where he served with distinction in the World War, out to his post in the Congo. His wife is a fine example of the white woman who has braved the dangers of the tropics. She left the luxury and convenience of European life to establish a home in the jungle.

It is easy to spot the refining influence of the woman in the African habitation. You always see the effect long before you behold the cause. One of these effects is usually a neat garden. Mrs. Wallace had half an acre of English roses in front of her house. They were the only ones I saw in Central Africa. The average bachelor in this part of the world is not particularly scrupulous about the appearance of his house. The moment you observe curtains at the window you know that there is a female on the premises.

My life at Alberta was one of the really delightful experiences in the Congo. Every morning I set out with Braham and Wallace on some tour of inspection. Often we rode part of the way on the little light railroad. The method of transport was unique. An ordinary bench is placed on a small flat car. The propelling power is furnished by two husky natives who stand on either side of the bench and literally shove the vehicle along with long sticks. It is like paddling a railroad canoe. This transportation freak is technically called a maculla. The strong-armed paddlers were able to develop an astonishing speed. I think that this is the only muscle-power railroad in the world. Light engines are employed for hauling the palm fruit trains.

After our day in the field—for frequently we took our lunch with us—we returned before sunset and bathed and dressed for dinner. In the Congo only a madman would take a cold plunge. The most healthful immersion is in tepid water. More than one Englishman has paid the penalty with his life, by continuing his traditional cold bath in the tropics. This reminds me of a significant fact in connection with colonization. Everyone must admit that the Briton is the best colonizer in the world. One reason is that he knows how to rule the man of colour for he does it with fairness and firmness. Another lies in the fact that he not only keeps himself clean but he makes his environment sanitary.

There is a tradition that the Constitution follows the flag. I contend that with the Englishman the bath-tub precedes the code of law and what is more important, it is in daily use. There are a good many bath-tubs in the Congo but they are employed principally as receptacles for food supplies and soiled linen.

Those evenings at Alberta were as unforgettable as their setting. Braham and Wallace were not only men of the world but they had read extensively and had travelled much. A wide range of subjects came under discussion at that hospitable table whose spotless linen and soft shaded lights were more reminiscent of London and New York than suggestive of a far-away post on the Congo River on the edge of the wilderness.

At Alberta as elsewhere, the "H. C. B." is a moral force. Each area has a doctor and a hospital. No detail of its medical work is more vital to the productive life of the Colony that the inoculation of the natives against sleeping sickness. This dread disease is the scourge of the Congo and every year takes toll of hundreds of thousands of natives. Nor is the white man immune. I saw a Belgian official dying of this loathsome malady in a hospital at Matadi and I shall never forget his ravings. The last stage of the illness is always a period when the victim becomes demented. The greatest boon that could possibly be held out for Central Africa today would be the prevention of sleeping sickness.

Another constructive work carried out under the auspices of the "H. C. B." is embodied in the native schools. There is an excellent one at Alberta. It is conducted by the Catholic Fathers of the Scheut Mission. The children are trained to become wood-workers, machinists, painters, and carpenters. It is the Booker Washington idea transplanted in the jungle. The Scheut Missionaries and their Jesuit colleagues are doing an admirable service throughout the Congo. Some of them are infused with the spirit that animated Father Damien. Time, distance, and isolation count for naught with them. It is no uncommon thing to encounter in the bush a Catholic priest who has been on continuous service there for fifteen or twenty years without a holiday. At Luluaburg lives a Mother Superior who has been in the field for a quarter of a century without wandering more than two hundred miles from her field of operations.

V

Now for the last stage of the Congo River trip. Like so many of my other experiences in Africa it produced a surprise. One morning when we were about two hundred miles north of Kinshassa I heard the whir of a motor engine, a rare sound in those parts. I thought of aeroplanes and instinctively looked up. Flying overhead toward Coquilhatville was a 300-horse power hydroplane containing two people. Upon inquiry I discovered that it was one of four machines engaged in carrying passengers, mail, and express between Kinshassa and Coquilhatville.

The campaign against the Germans in East Africa proved the practicability of aeroplanes in the tropics. The Congo is the first of the Central African countries to dedicate aviation to commercial uses and this precedent is likely to be extensively followed. Fifteen hydroplanes have been ordered for the Congo River service which will eventually be extended to Stanleyville. Only those who have endured the agony of slow transport in the Congo can realize the blessing that air travel will confer.

I was naturally curious to find out just what the African native thought of the aeroplane. The moment that the roar of the engine broke the morning silence, everybody on the boat rushed to some point of vantage to see the strange sight. The blacks slapped each other on the shoulder, pointed at the machine, and laughed and jabbered. Yet when my secretary asked a big Baluba if he did not think that the aeroplane was a wonderful thing the barbarian simply grunted and replied, "White man can do anything." He summed up the native attitude toward his conqueror. I believe that if a white man performed the most astounding feat of magic or necromancy the native would not express the slightest surprise.

At Kwamouth, where the Kasai flows into the Congo River, we entered the so-called "Channel." From this point down to Stanley Pool the river is deep and the current is swift. This means that for a brief time the traveller enjoys immunity from the danger of running aground on a sandbank. The whole country-side is changed. Instead of the low and luxuriantly-wooded shores the banks become higher with each passing hour. Soon the land adjacent to the river merges into foothills and these in turn taper off into mountains. The effect is noble and striking. No wonder Stanley went into ecstasies over this scenery. He declared on more than one occasion that it was as inspiring as any he had seen in Wales or Scotland.

In the "Channel" another surprise awaits the traveller. The mornings are bitterly raw. This is probably due to the high ground on either side of the river and the strong currents of air that sweep up the stream. I can frankly say that I really suffered from the cold within striking distance of the equator. I did not feel comfortable until I had donned a heavy sweater.

This sudden change in temperature explains one reason why so many Congo natives die under forty. They are scantily clad, perspire freely, and lie out at night with scarcely any covering. They go to sleep in a humid atmosphere and wake up with the temperature forty degrees lower. The natural result is that half of them constantly have colds and the moment pneumonia develops they succumb. Congestion of the lungs vies with sleeping sickness as the ravager of Middle Africa, and especially certain parts of the Congo.

Kinshassa is situated on Stanley Pool, a lake-like expansion of the Congo more than two hundred square miles in area. It is dotted with islands. Nearly one-third of the northern shore is occupied by the rocky formations that Stanley named Dover Cliffs. They reminded him of the famous white cliffs of England and with the sunlight on them they do bear a strong resemblance to one of the familiar signposts of Albion. More than one Englishman emerging from the jungle after long service remote from civilization has gotten a thrill of home at the name and sight of these hills.

Stanley Pool has always been associated in my mind with one of the most picturesque episodes in Stanley's life. He tells about it in his monumental work on the Congo Free State and again relates it in his Autobiography. It deals with Ngalyema, who was chief of the Stanley Pool District in the early eighties. He demanded and received a large quantity of goods for the permission to establish a station here. After the explorer had camped within ten miles of the Pool the old pirate pretended that he had not received the goods and sought to extort more. Stanley refused to be bullied, whereupon the chief threatened to attack him in force. Let Stanley now tell the story, for it is an illustration of the way he combated the usury and cunning of the Congo native.

Kinshassa was an accident. Leopoldville, which is situated about ten miles away and the capital of the Congo-Kasai Province, was expected to become the center of white life and enterprise in this vicinity. It was founded by Stanley in the early eighties and named in honour of the Belgian king. It commands the river, cataracts, forests and mountains.

Commerce, however, fixed Kinshassa as its base of operation, and its expansion has been astonishing for that part of the world. It is a bustling port and you can usually see half a dozen steamers tied up at the bank. There is a population of several hundred white people and many thousands of natives. The Banque du Congo Belge has its principal establishment here and there are scores of well-stocked mercantile establishments. With the exception of Matadi and Thysville it has the one livable hotel in the Congo. Moreover, it rejoices in that now indispensable feature of civic life which is expressed in a cinema theatre. In the tropics all motion picture houses are open-air institutions.

In cataloguing Kinshassa's attractions I must not omit the feature that had the strongest and most immediate lure for me. It was a barber shop and I made tracks for it as soon as I arrived. I was not surprised to find that the proprietor was a Portuguese who had made a small fortune trimming the Samson locks of the scores of agents who stream into the little town every week. He is the only barber in the place and there is no competition this side of Stanleyville, more than a thousand miles away.

The seasoned residents of the Congo would never think of calling Kinshassa by any other name than "Kin." In the same way Leopoldville is dubbed "Leo." Kinshassa is laid out in streets, has electric lights, and within the past twelve months about twenty automobiles have been acquired by its residents. There is a gay social life, and on July first, the anniversary of the birth of the Congo Free State, and when a celebration is usually held, I saw a spirited football game between British and Belgian teams. Most of the big international British trading companies that operate in Africa have branches in Kinshassa and it is not difficult to assemble an English-speaking quorum.

In the matter of transportation Kinshassa is really the key to the heart of the Congo. It is the rail-head of the narrow-gauge line from Matadi and all merchandise that comes from Europe is transshipped at this point to the boats that go up the Congo river as far as Stanleyville. Thus every ton of freight and every traveller bound for the interior must pass through Kinshassa. When the railway from the Katanga is constructed its prestige will increase.

Kinshassa owes a part of its development to the Huileries du Congo Belge. Its plant dominates the river front. There are a dozen huge tanks into which the palm-oil flows from the barges. The fluid is then run into casks and sent down by rail to Matadi, whence it goes in steamers to Europe. More than a hundred white men are in the service of the "H. C. B." at Stanley Pool. They live in standardized brick bungalows in their own area which is equipped with tennis courts and a library. On all English fête days the Union Jack is hoisted and there is much festivity.

Two months had elapsed since I entered the Congo and I had travelled about two thousand miles within its borders. This journey, short as it seems as distances go these days, would have taken Stanley nearly two years to accomplish in the face of the obstacles that hampered him. I had only carried out part of my plan. The Kasai was calling. The time was now at hand when I would retrace my way up the Congo River and turn my face towards the Little America that nestles far up in the wilds.

CHAPTER VI—AMERICA IN THE CONGO

What is the Forminiere and what does it do? The name is a contraction of Société Internationale Forestiere & Miniere du Congo. In the Congo, where companies have long titles, it is the fashion to reduce them to the dimensions of a cable code-word. Thus the high-sounding Compagnie Industrielle pour les Transports et Commerce au Stanley Pool is mercifully shaved to "Citas." This information, let me say, is a life-saver for the alien with a limited knowledge of French and whose pronunciation is worse.

Clearly to understand the scope and purpose of the Forminiere you must know that it is one of the three companies that have helped to shape the destiny of the Congo. I encountered the first—the Union Miniere—the moment I entered the Katanga. The second is the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm-oil producers whose bailiwick abuts upon the Congo and Kwilu Rivers. Now we come to the third and the most important agency, so far as American interest is affected, in the Forminiere, whose empire is the immense section watered by the Kasai River and which extends across the border into Angola. In the Union Miniere you got the initial hint of America's part in the development of the Congo. That part, however, was entirely technical. With the Forminiere you have the combination of American capital and American engineering in an achievement that is, to say the least, unusual.

The moment I dipped into Congo business history I touched the Forminiere for the reason that it was the pet project of King Leopold, and the last and favorite corporate child of his economic statesmanship. Moreover, among the leading Belgian capitalists interested were men who had been Stanley's comrades and who had helped to blaze the path of civilization through the wilds. King Albert spoke of it to me in terms of appreciation and more especially of the American end. I felt a sense of pride in the financial courage and physical hardihood of my countrymen who had gone so far afield. I determined to see the undertaking at first hand.

My experience with it proved to be the most exciting of my whole African adventure. All that I had hitherto undergone was like a springtime frolic compared to the journey up the Kasai and through the jungle that lurks beyond. I saw the war-like savage on his native heath; I travelled with my own caravan through the forest primeval; I employed every conceivable kind of transport from the hammock swung on a pole and carried on the shoulders of husky natives, to the automobile. The primitive and modern met at almost every stage of the trip which proved to be first cousin to a thriller from beginning to end. Heretofore I had been under the spell of the Congo River. Now I was to catch the magic of its largest tributary, the Kasai.

Long before the Forminiere broke out its banner, America had been associated with the Congo. It is not generally known that Henry M. Stanley, who was born John Rowlands, achieved all the feats which made him an international figure under the name of his American benefactor who adopted him in New Orleans after he had run away to sea from a Welsh workhouse. He was for years to all intents and purposes an American, and carried the American flag on two of his famous expeditions.

President Cleveland was the first chief dignitary of a nation to recognize the Congo Free State in the eighties, and his name is perpetuated in Mount Cleveland, near the headwaters of the Congo River. An American Minister to Belgium, General H. S. Sanford, had a conspicuous part in all the first International African Associations formed by King Leopold to study the Congo situation. This contact, however, save Stanley's share, was diplomatic and a passing phase. It was the prelude to the constructive and permanent part played by the American capitalists in the Forminiere, chief of whom is Thomas F. Ryan.

The reading world associates Ryan with the whirlpool of Big Finance. He ruled New York traction and he recast the tobacco world. Yet nothing appealed to his imagination and enthusiasm like the Congo. He saw it in very much the same way that Rhodes viewed Rhodesia. Every great American master of capital has had his particular pet. There is always some darling of the financial gods. The late J. P. Morgan, for example, regarded the United States Steel Corporation as his prize performance and talked about it just like a doting father speaks of a successful son. The Union Pacific System was the apple of E. H. Harriman's eye, and the New York Central was a Vanderbilt fetish for decades. So with Ryan and the Congo. Other powerful Americans have become associated with him, as you will see later on, but it was the tall, alert, clear-eyed Virginian, who rose from penniless clerk to be a Wall Street king, who first had the vision on this side of the Atlantic, and backed it with his millions. I am certain that if Ryan had gone into the Congo earlier and had not been engrossed in his American interests, he would probably have done for the whole of Central Africa what Rhodes did for South Africa.