Three Years' Travel in the : Discussion Author(s): Francis de Winton, Chauncy Maples, Scott Elliot, Mr. Hinde and Delmar Morgan Source: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 5, No. 5 (May, 1895), pp. 442-446 Published by: geographicalj Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773855 Accessed: 27-06-2016 09:56 UTC

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This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:56:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 442 THREE YEARS' TRAVEL IN THE CONGO FREE STATE-DISCUSSION.

sold at Tanganyika, a journey of sis days. tIr. Alohull here took eom- mand of the expeclition, and returned doxvn the river to Itasongo. After resting at Wasongo for ten days, the abseess in my livel gettin wororse, I deeided to start down the Congo. After fifteen days I alrived fIt Stanley Falls, and took a steamer baek to Stanley PoDl. In eonelusion, I would draw your attention to certain general observations. 1. The politieal geography of the Upper Colzgo basin has been eotnpletely ehanged, as a result of the Belgian eampaign among the . It used to be a eolumon saying, in this part of Afriea, that all roads lead to . This town, visited by Livingstone, Stanley, and Cameron, until lately one of the greatest learkets in Afriea, has ceased to exist, and its site, vhen I last saw it, was oecupied by a single house. Wasongo, a more reeent though still larger eentre, with perhaps 60,000 inhabitants, has also been ssvept anay. It is represented now by a station of the Free State 9 miles away, on the river-bank. 2. In harmony with this politieal ehange, the trade routes have leen eompletely altered, and the traffie whieh used to follow the well- beaten traek from Nyangwe and the Lualaba, across Tanganyika to Ujiji, or round the lake to Zanzibar, now goes down the Gongo to Starlley Pool and the Atlantie. 3. Despite their slave-raiding propensities during the forty years of their domination, the Arabs have eonverted the AIanyetna and Malela eountrtJ into one of the most prosperous in Central Afriea. The landseape, as seen from high hills in tlle neighbourhood of Nyangwe and , reminds one strongly of an ordinary English arable eountry. There is nothing similar, that I am aware of, in any other part of the Congo basin; and yet the Arabs have left the hIalela perhap3 the most inveterate eannibals on the faee of the globe. 4. In all parts of the virgin Congo forest I have visited, wild eoSee is so abulldant and so exeellent, that wtre left our tins of imported eoSee unopened. 5. The centre of the Congo basin, through which stretch the 1000 miles of naw-igable river and tributary, is an alluvial plain, rimmed in on all sides b) rocky ridges, through which the rivers break at points marked by falls or rapids. At some future titne, this vast ring of rapids may bfecolue the ss3at of a correspondillg cilele of mining-centres.

Before the reading of the paper, tlae PRESIDENT said: This evening we are assembled to hear a very interesting account, as I am sure it xvill be, of Captain Hinde's adventures in Africa, and of some important exlDloring work which he acconlplishedr After the readin,g of the pal)er, the following discussion took place:- Major-General Sir FRANCIS DE XVINTON-: I have listened to the paper which has been read this evening with a great deal of interest, because I can trace the advances that have been made within the last ten years, for I took the first boat up

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the Kasai river, tbe StaqzZey, the first voyage she ever made. NVissmann brought down a large number of the tribe of Balubas from the central part of Africa, and l.ve took them bacL. XVe now learn from the paper of this evening of the advances that have been ollade since that time. It is vely natural for us, from our point of eivilization, to feel that the Alabs, as they are called in , have been the great hindrance to the advance of whatever posver we try to bring into their gnidst for good, but at the same tinae I think it only jllst that we should llot con- found the so-called Arab of the interior with the Arab on the East Coast. Most of those that drift into the interior, at Syangwe for instance, began as traders, takiIlg up caravans. They are not the true Arab of the coast, but a cross between the native and the Arab, who afterwards turned into slave-traders, and carry on a louble commerce in slaves and ivory. On the East Coast I have had a great deal to (lo with the Arabs, and I found them men who, if dealt with properly and with a rigllt motive, uTere alnvays ready to meet one halSxzJay. These half-breeds who drift up from the coast into the interior establish themselves at places such as we have heard of to-night, Nyangxve and :Easongo, and while we cannot help some admiration for tlle centres of civilization which they created, namely, towns of from 30,000 to 60,000 inhabitants, they llave brought the curse of into the country, and by its means they established large commercial centres and lnaintained these big towns which Mr. Hinde has so graphically described. If you permit me a few minutes, I will say a few words upon other lsoints connected with his interesting paper. He spoke of the Lukuga, which runs out of i,nto the Congo, and forms really one of the watersheds of this rather peculiar lake- region. One year when I was at Vivi, where the river was about a mile wide, we trie(l to find the bottom at 400 feet and failed; 1;his will give you an i(lea of the immense quantity of water there. NVell, that river rose 14 feet in one night during the rainy season; you can imaCine the enormous body of water that must have caused that rise. Three months afterwards some steamers which were at Stanley pool at the time reported that the great lake had broken ollt. l'his is interesting, as Tanganyika has no other oltltlet excel)t one, the Lukuga. Inthat region squatic regetation grows fast. Grown in the lalie, it draws towards this inlet and dams it ,p. When Stanley went there tnvo years after finding Livingstone at Ujiji, he found his former camp 10 feet under water, showing that the lake periodically rises and falls. The water at last bursts through the dam and forms an enormous river, and I believe it was one of those outbursts that gave that rise of 14 feet in one night lower down. Stauley found the banks of the LukuCa giving evidence {f very extraordinary floods, as if imlalense masses of water came down at different periods. The other point is with reference to what is knonvn as the Congo Free State. If you remember, the second map that was shown to you by means of the magic antern gave the navigable portions of the different rivers. Now they are building a railway from Matadi up to Stanley pool, a distance of about 230 to 250 miles; zbout one-third of it, up to Banza Mateka, is finished, and, this portion being built, tne railway en(rineers' difficulties are more or less overcome, because at the com- mencement they had to break through rollCll countly and had considerable difficulty sith rocky obstructions; but that is passed, and now there is only plain country with two rivers to cross, the I

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:56:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 444 THREE YEARS' TRAVEL IN THE CONGO FREE STATE-DISCUSSIOX.

you cannot develop Africa ulltil you Cet rid of shat may be termed hulllan trans- port. You cannot bring tlle products any distance without a railvay, or some other means of carriage other than on men's heads. If you employ these porters, from a commercial point it cannot pay. This railxvay, built by the King of the BelCians, or the State if they take it over, will open out all the navigable waters of the Congo and its tributaries. If we were to build a railxvay up fiom Mombasa, lve should have the whole of this lake and the countries round the sources of the Nile open to our European markets, and vllltil our statesmen feel the responsibilities- of this questioll, and take a sensible and statesmalllike view of the question of transport, the development of Gentral Africa cannot 70 forwald. AYhen they do ve shall open markets for our suffering poor at home and kill the slave-trade, and, by enabling white people to live amonCst them, civilize Africa in that way. Archdeacon CHAUN-CY MAPLES: I am afraid it is a far cry from Nyasaland to the ConCo, but in African matters I think we should feel inclined to say, " One touch of Africa makes us all akin." 'l'here were several points in Mr. Hinde's paper on whicha I should like to offer a few remarks. For instance, about the locusts: people irl EnCland hardly realize the estent of this evil yet, although they have read a great deal about what a tremendous scourge these locusts have become throughout Africa. I think Mr. Hinde mentioned that the locusts visited tlle Congo previous to the time when they appeared on Nyasa last August, lvhen I remember what- .> terrible thinC it +^Tas to see them coming in clouds over us, because we knelv what that would mean in a fe^r years' time, and no one could say when or where they were likely to stop. \Yhen I left Nyasa the dead locusts were, on some parts of the lake-shores, like seaweed thrown up after a storm, and the stench was so great that it was impossible even for natives to pass by at certain places. They are still spreadin^,, and no one seems able to say lvhat will be the end. If this pestr continues,at the end of the year there will be a great cry sent up to Heaven for deliverance from the scourge, and we shall be sayin(r, " Locusts, loctlsts everyxvhereg but nota thillg to eat," throughout the lenath and breadthof Africa. WIr. Hinde said something about the inquiries he had made as to when such a thillg was known before. I have made inqvliries too, and remember when first I went to Africa nineteen years ago, in 1876, the natives used to speak about the scourge that had taken place two or three years previously, that is, txventy-two to twenty-three years ao. I invite your attention to that, because I am afiaid in a year's time you will hear terrible stories of the results of this visitation, for the locusts mean famine, and famine means war, and the war means death; first many natives will starve to death, then war will come and carry ofl many of those whom the famine has not destroyeal. itnother point dwelt on by Mr. Hinfle is especially interesting at the present time. He alluded to the abun(lance of wild coffee which he found durinC his travels. NVell, coSee-planting is a new industry in that part of Africa brought so picturesquely before you lately by my friend the Commissioner of SyasalaIld, Mr. H. H. Johnston. Nothing more encouraging, from the point of view of com- merce and the planters, can be found, for I must not spealS here from the point of view of a missionary. 'l'here is nothing more encouraginC, I say, than to see the coffee plantations in the Blantyre region. I believe ma self it will attract a very large number of people out there, and if the leaf-disease does not come, we may expect to see a number of our young fellows, for whom it is so difficult nowadays to find work, goinffl out there, and returning to their friencls in ten to fifteen years with (let us hope) a fortune made. But the evening is getting late, and I am sure you will not have much more patience with me if I dilate on other matters, and there are others here svho can

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speak so very much luore to the point. I hope, for instance, that my friend AIr. Scott Elliot, whose name was mentioned this earening, may be in the room. We carne home t<;ether as far as Zanzibar, and I learne(l from him soluething about his interestino travels. I suppose you all know the great interest of his recent journey, frorn the teographical point of view, is centred in the fact that he has discovered that the liver Eaera, which pours its watets into the ATictoria Nyanza, is navit,able for a great part of the distance; and I think I am right in saying that if that route can be opened up, there will be a waterway to U cranda, with only eicrhteen clays of land travel. Most of you are aware of the long; and tedious journey to Uvanda from the coast, but ly this new road to that country one would go up the rivers to Blantyre, and so on to Tarlganyika, and I think Mr. Elliot told me that five or six days frortl the north end of 'l'anganyika olle would strilse the river Kagera nvhere it becomes naviCable. I only tnention this because, if he happens to be in tlle room to-night, it would be a great pity to lose an opportunity of hearinC a few words from him. Mr. SCO'1'T ELLIOT: I should liKe to point out tlle enormous efSect of the work in which Mr. Hinde was enCaged. I found the effect of it at the north end of Tanganyika, and all along its eastern shore. I do not think that people realize that the defeat of Rumaliza has been the turning-point of African civilization. This Arab domination, of wllich he was the type, involved the corruption, morally and physically, of everT native race which it came in contact with, and destroyed all kinds of cultivation and industry. I found instances of that all alonb my route. The work done by the expedition that Captain Hinzle accompanied is, therefore, one of the most importallt it is possible to conceive. AVith regard to locusts, I must say I do not hold the generally received opinion. In December, 189S, I first came across these locusts after passing the AIau escarpment, and after that date until the middle of the rainy season in the Shire hiahlands I came across them constantly, practically everywhere. I spent some little time in trying to understand the conditions that influence the abundance of locusts, and I rather think their presence is due to some special climatic conditions when the eg(rs are being hatched. I don't think there can be a reOular cycle of locust years unless there is a correspondinc cycle of climatic conditions. Whether that occurs or not is a difficult question. It is, ot course, interesting to me to hear Captain Hinde's paper, because I have recently undergone the same difiiculties he alludes to. My own exlDerience is that the native, as one finds him uninfluenced by Arab missionaries7 is a much better person than where he has been to a certain extent civilized by these Arabs, although in his own opinion he is then a very much better man. hIr. HINDE: The cause of the locust pest may be looked for in the fact that the areater part of the Central African basin havint, been in a disturbed state owinC to war for llearly three years, the natives did not burll the (trass throuahout the whole country, as is their custom in the dry seasoll. Tlle 10CUSt larvx were consequently allowed to come to maturity. Mr. DELMAR MORGAN: It is so many years sillce I was on tlle Congo that Captain Hinde's interestincr paper is quite a revelation to tne. In less than twelve years all that immense territory drained bfr the upper Collgo and its tributaries ihas been explored and opelaed to Europeans. Ill rny titne (1883) but little of the Congo was known above Leopoldville, and there had only beell olle expedition to the upper Concro. Great as has been the ad+7ance in our knowledt,e of this reg;io undel the auspices of the Conao iFree State, I cannot but lealet that all this explorin(t work has not been placed under international control, xvith the view of rotectill^!3 the natise inhabitallts from the afrt,ressive collduct of the white Illan and the raids of the Aravb slave-hunter. AVhilst in other countries the contact

This content downloaded from 131.247.112.3 on Mon, 27 Jun 2016 09:56:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 446 THE LUCHU 1SLANDS AND THEIPt INHABITANTS.

betweerl the European an(l the native races has resulted in sollle good to the latter, in Central Africa, on the contrary, nothing but harnl has come of it; and the indigenous blowth of civilization, witnessed by the various handicrafts of the people-specimens of which luay be seen in the llest room- is being stamped out I must again express regret that the wide and enlightened viesvs of his Majesty the King of the Belgians, who initiated international concert in dealinc with Celltral Africa, have not been developed, and that the aims alld views of Livingstone, the best and greatest of African explorers, have not been realized. The PRESIDENT: Captain Hinde has taken part in an event which will pro- bably be found to be the most important since the discovery of the course of the Congo by Ml. Stanley. The Arab slave-traders seem to have been entirely cleared out of the country. Captaill Hinde's independent exl)loration is also of great geographical interest, in havin;, ascended the Lualaba and completed its explora- tion as far as the Lukuga. I am sure the uleetin{r will desire ule to rettlln him our vely hearty thanks for the interestiljg papel he has Oiven us this evenin.

NOq'E ONT THE MAP OF PART OF THE SOUTEI-EASTERN CONGO Bj8ISr NVith the work of the older explorers, whose routes are laid down on the map, has been incor- porated material supplied by Captain Hinde, ill the shape of sketch-maps made by himself and other officials of the Congo State. The routes covered by these maps are the following: Lupungu Mulenda N'Gandu; Kolomolli Goi Muyassa- Piani Solomoni Lussuna; N'Gandu Lussuna; Funda Fuanka Molenda; Lussuna-Piano Chiaba-Luliuna; routes north alld south-west of Lusalubo. The courses of the Lukuga and Lualaba from Mbuli's to Lukuna are from Captain Hinde's compass-survey, with additions from the survey made by Mr. Mohun ('Mouvement Geographique,' 1894, p. 84). The course of the Lualaba below Ltlkuna is from Dr. Lenz's survey (' htitteilullgen der 1R.1R. Geogl. Gesellsch. NVien7' 1886, hIap viii., scale 1: 1,130,000).

THE LUCHU ISLANDS AND THEIR INHABITANTS.'

By BASIL HALL CHAMBERLAIN, Emeritus Professor of Japanese and Philology in the Imperial University of Japan.

IV. MANNERS AND CUSTO.NIS OF THE INISABIIAN18.

The manners and custouls of a people oSel so illimitably widei a geld, that it will be best in this instance to pass lightly ovel points made known by earlier traellers, and to dxvell at greater length onl- on such as are new. Both Basil Hall and PerrJr, for illstance, have described the Luchuan costunle and illustrated it pictorially in their works. Their descriptions still llold, except tllat the elaborate robes and caps of office are Bo n.ore, now tllat Luclluan independence itself is at an end, atld that officials from ToktZo in E:ur(l)ean trousers and fiock- coats rule the land. In essentials the evelyday Luchuan costume resembles the Japanese, beint a loose robe {ol the men as well as for the WO1Uell. The xvearint of two large ll.lirpins by the men gold,

* Paper read at tlle Royal Geographical Society, Jalluary 7, lX9o. Iap, ). 408 Continued from the April nlllllLer.

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