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Updated: June 27, 2025
With Horner I travelled by motor through the whole Katanga copper belt. I visited, first of all, the famous Star of the Congo Mine, eight miles from Elizabethville, and which was the cornerstone of the entire metal development. Next came the immense excavation at Kambove where I watched American steam shovels in charge of Americans, gouging the copper ore out of the sides of the hills.
The principal product of the soil, commercially, is the fruit of the palm tree and here Nature again does most of the ground work. Mining is, in many respects, the chief operation and the Katanga, which is really one huge mine, principally copper, is the most prosperous region so far as bulk of output is concerned.
The Katanga is, with the exception of certain palm fruit areas, the bulwark of British interests in the Congo. The American domain is the Upper Kasai district. Conspicuous among the Americans at Elizabethville was Preston K. Horner, who constructed the smelter plant and who was made General Manager of the Union Miniere in 1913.
We are increasing our river fleets and we propose to introduce on them a type of barge similar to that used on the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. "An imposing program of railway expansion is blocked out. For one thing we expect to run a railway from the Katanga copper belt straight across country to Kinshassa on the Lower Congo. It is already surveyed.
As soon as I reached the Congo River I saw that the natives were bigger and stronger than those of the Katanga and other sections that I had visited. The most important of the river tribes are the Bangalas, who are magnificent specimens of manhood. In Stanley's day they were masters of a considerable portion of the Upper Congo River region and contested his way skilfully and bitterly.
They probably got them from the Koran, as verbally explained by some liberal Mullah, and showed how naturally they spread any new ideas they obtained: they were astonished to find that Park knew the stories. The people at Katanga are afraid to dig for the gold in their country because they believe that it has been hidden where it is by "Ngolu," who is the owner of it.
Each comes out of a fountain; the Lufira one is called Changozi, and is small, and in a wood of large trees S.W. of Katanga; the fountain of the Liambai is so large that one cannot call to a person on the other side, and he appears also very small there the two fountains are just five hours distant from each other.
In 1901 an Austrian trader, Rabinek, was arrested and imprisoned for "illegal" trading in rubber in the "Katanga Trust" country. Treated unfeelingly during his removal down the country, he succumbed to fever. His effects were seized and have not been restored to his heirs . Papers, Africa.
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