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The only atrocities that I saw in the Congo were the slaughter of my clothes on the native washboard, usually a rock, and the American jitney that broke down and left me stranded in the Kasai jungle.
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.
I replied that the goods were my property and not his; that I would never have it said that a white man had paid tribute to a black, and that I should cross the Kasai in spite of him. He ordered his people to arm themselves, and when some of my men saw them rushing for their bows, arrows, and spears, they became somewhat panic-stricken.
Many indications have been found, and it is inevitable that they will be located in time. The diamond-bearing earth sometimes travels very far from its base, and the American engineers in the Congo with whom I talked are convinced that these volcanic formations which usually produce large stones, lie far up in the Kasai hills.
Had much to say which did not want printed until he out of country which will be in month or two. Anstrossi has given me side of cabin where there is room for my cot, so expect to sleep. STANLEY POOL, Feb. 22nd, 1907. DEAR MOTHER: When you get this, I will be on my way to London. The rest of my stay here will be on board two boats, touching at the banks of the Kasai river.
In any event, after I start, there will be no way for us to communicate, and I will act on the understanding that she has started North. I have two very good boys and both speak English, and are from Sierra Leone. I take a two-day trip of 200 miles by rail, then four days by boat up the Kasai and then I may come back by boat or walk.
Kawawa came in the coolest manner possible to our encampment after sending this message, and told me he had seen all our goods, and must have all he asked, as he had command of the Kasai in our front, and would prevent us from passing it unless we paid this tribute.
There were men from the Congo and the French Congo; men from German lands; from Angola; wanderers from far-off Barotseland, who had drifted on to the Congo by the swift and yellow Kasai. There were hunters from the forests of far-off Bongindanga where the okapi roams.
I leave on the 23d to go up the Kasai River, because that is where the atrocities come from and up there there are many missionaries. I don't want you to think I say this to "calm your fears," but I say it because it is as true of this place as of every other one in the world, and that is, that it is as easy to get about here as it is in Rhode Island. It is not half as dangerous as automobiling.
We were now rather glad to get past villages without intercourse with the inhabitants. We were traveling W.N.W., and all the rivulets we here crossed had a northerly course, and were reported to fall into the Kasai or Loke; most of them had the peculiar boggy banks of the country.
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