United States or Niger ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
Lord Mountmorres is now anxious to hasten to Bumba for the rest of the mail and if necessary to send a special courier to Coquilhatville with a cablegram while I arrange to follow more slowly and hunt the country in between. He therefore leaves Djabir on October 31st taking only one boy and a little baggage. It is a very hot day and at night-time a heavy tornado bursts over the Post.
The system of work in every Post is exactly the same, so that a description of it as witnessed in Coquilhatville would equally do for every place in the Congo. At 5.30 a.m. reveille and at 6 a.m. roll call of all the Europeans and native workers who then, led by a bugler, march off to their respective duties. At 11.15 a.m. bugle call and all the natives march to the river and bathe.
It is indeed becoming more and more apparent that the State has gone ahead very fast and that the stress has been great, both for Europeans and natives. Probably, now the machine is fairly set rolling, it will proceed more steadily in the future. Next day we decide to leave the Flandre and stay for a week or so at Coquilhatville.
The farm buildings are kept most scrupulously clean, for the slightest neglect would probably occasion an epidemic of trichinosis among the pigs. The villages in the neighbourhood of Coquilhatville seem very populous and prosperous. Any morning early whole families can be met father, mother and children, with bundles of manioc fastened on their backs by broad grass fibres going to the town.
The wealthy wear heavy brass rings extending from the ankle to the knee and the discomfort must be very great, but as is proved by the tatouage, the natives will bear much pain in order to beautify themselves. Before leaving Coquilhatville, we send for the boy Epondo, who was rendered famous as an example of an atrocity by Mr. Casement, the late British Consul at Boma.
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.
On August 8th we visit the Botanical Gardens at Eala, which is about three miles from Coquilhatville. Mr. Pinard, the Director of the Gardens, shows us the various plants indigenous and imported which he has collected, and although the place has only been formed for three years, almost everything which could possibly grow has been planted.
Here used to be a settlement, but most of the people have moved higher up. There is still a Mission near the place and a good road runs along the bank between plantations of bananas and gardens to Coquilhatville which we reach in the afternoon. The Equator District. Coquilhatville, the capital of this important District is the largest town in the Upper Congo.
Word Of The Day