Isaac Frederick Marcosson

“ CHAPTER VI—AMERICA IN THE CONGO I
Go up the Kasai River to Djoko Punda and you believe, despite the background of tropical vegetation and the ever-present naked savage, that for the moment you are back in the United States. You see American jitneys scooting through the jungle; you watch five-ton American tractors hauling heavy loads along the sandy roads; you hear American slang and banter on all sides, and if you are lucky enough to be invited to a meal you get American hot cakes with real American maple syrup. The air tingles with Yankee energy and vitality. ”

“ Although these odious practices have practically ceased except in isolated instances, the Congo native, in boasting of his strength, constantly speaks of his liver, and not of his heart.
It was on the Lualaba, after the boat had tied up for the night, that I caught the first whisper of the jungle. In Africa Nature is in her frankest mood but she expresses herself in subdued tones. All my life I had read of the witchery of these equatorial places, but no description is ever adequate. You must live with them to catch the magic. ”

“ The moment you touch South African agriculture you reach a real romance. Nowhere, not even in the winning of the American West by the Mormons, do you get a more dramatic spectacle of the triumph of the pioneer over combative conditions. The Mormons made the Utah desert bloom, and the Boers and their British colleagues wrested riches from the bare veldt. The Mormons fought Indians and wrestled with drought, while the Dutch in Africa and their English comrades battled with Kaffirs, Hottentots and Zulus and endured a no less grilling exposure to sun. ”

“ You get a familiar feel of America in this South African country and especially in the Cape Colony, which is a place of fruits, flowers and sunshine resembling California. There is the sense of newness in the atmosphere, and something of the abandon that you encounter among the people of Australia and certain parts of Canada. It comes from life spent in the open and the spirit of pioneering that within a comparatively short time has wrested a huge domain from the savage. ”

“ The average man associates this place with a famous siege in the Boer War and the equally famous diamond mines. But it is much more for it is packed with romance and reality. Here came Cecil Rhodes in his early manhood and pulled off the biggest business deal of his life; here you find the first milepost that the American mining engineer set up in the mineral development of Africa: here is produced in greater quantities than in any other place in the world the glittering jewel that vanity and avarice set their heart upon. ”

“ The Société Generale, however, is much more than a bank. It is the dynamo that drives Belgian enterprise throughout the globe. We in America pride ourselves on the fact that huge combinations of capital geared up to industry are a specialty entirely our own. We are much mistaken. Little Belgium has in the Société an agency for development unique among financial institutions. Its imposing marble palace on the Rue Royale is the nerve center of a corporate life that has no geographical lines. With a capital of 62,000,000 francs it has piled up reserves of more than 400,000,000 francs. ”

“ Since Sir William has touched upon the coal supply we at once get a link,—and a typical one—with the ramified resource of the Union of South Africa. No product, not even those precious stones that lie in the bosom of Kimberley, or the glittering golden ore imbedded in the Rand, has a larger political or economic significance just now. Nor does any commodity figure quite so prominently in the march of world events.
In peace, as in war, coal spells life and power. ”

“ Although he found Livingstone, relieved Emin Pasha, first traversed the Congo River, and sowed the seeds of civilization throughout the heart of the continent, his greatest single achievement, perhaps, was the founding of the Congo Free State. No other enterprise took such toll of his essential qualities and especially his genius for organization.
Stanley is most widely known as an explorer, yet he was, at the same time, one of the master civilizers. He felt that his Congo adventure would be incomplete if he did not make the State a vast productive region and the home of the white man. ”

“ What people generally do not understand is that the lower part of that one-time Dark Continent is one of the most prosperous regions in the world, where the home currency is at a premium instead of a discount; where the high cost of living remains a stranger and where you get little suggestion of the commercial rack and ruin that are disturbing the rest of the universe. While the war-ravaged nations and their neighbors are feeling their dubious way towards economic reconstruction, the Union of South Africa is on the wave of a striking expansion. ”

“ There is a delightful social life at Tshikapa. Most of the mines, which are mainly in charge of American engineers, are within a day's travelling distance in a teapoy and much nearer by automobile. Some of the managers have their families with them, and they foregather at the main post every Sunday. On Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and Christmas there is always a big rally which includes a dance and vaudeville show in the men's mess hall. The Stars and Stripes are unfurled to the African breeze and the old days in the States recalled. It is real community life on the fringe of the jungle. ”

“ Each has been, and remains, a pillar of Empire. Each has emulated the Admirable Crichton in the variety and multiplicity of public posts. Lloyd George has held five Cabinet posts in England and Smuts has duplicated the record in South Africa. Each man is an inspired orator who owes much of his advancement to eloquent tongue. Their platform manner is totally different. Lloyd George is fascinatingly magnetic in and out of the spotlight while Smuts is more coldly logical. When you hear Lloyd George you are stirred and even exalted by his golden imagery. ”

“ No matter how a nation covets another—and I refer to British covetousness,—if the nation coveted is able to govern itself it cannot and must not be assimilated. It is one result of the Great War."
"What is the Nationalist ideal?" I asked.
"It is the right to self-rule," replied Hertzog. "But there must be no conflict if it can be avoided. It must prevail by reason and education. At the present time I admit that the majority of South Africans do not want republicanism. The Nationalist mission today is to keep the torch lighted." ”

“ There are two reasons why our capital has not wandered far afield. One is that we have a great country with enormous resources and consequently almost unlimited opportunities for the employment of cash at home. The other lies in the fact that American capital abroad is not afforded the same protection granted the money of other countries. Take British capital. It is probably the most courageous of all. The sun never sets on it. England is a small country and her money, to spread its wings, must go elsewhere. ”

“ I felt like an explorer going into the unknown places. It was the real thing in jungle experience.
From two o'clock until sunset we trotted through the wilds, which were almost thrillingly beautiful. In Africa there is no twilight, and darkness swoops down like a hawk. All afternoon the teapoy men, after their fashion, carried on what was literally a running crossfire of questions among themselves. They usually boast of their strength and their families and always discuss the white man they are carrying and his characteristics. ”

“ No other section of that vast empire of mystery is so packed with hazard and hardship, nor is any so bound up with American enterprise. Across it Stanley made his way in two epic expeditions. Livingstone gave it the glamour of his spiritualizing influence. Fourteen nations stood sponsor at its birth as a Free State and the whole world shook with controversy about its administration. Once the darkest domain of the Dark Continent, it is still the stronghold of the resisting jungle and the last frontier of civilization. It is the Belgian Congo. ”

“ In conversation with many of them afterwards it was interesting to hear the sons of settlers referring to the England that they had never seen, as "home." That night I realized as never before,—not even amid the agony and sacrifice of the Somme or the Ancre in France,—one reason why the British Empire is great and why, despite all muddling, it carries on. It lies in the feeling of imperial kinship far out at the frontiers of civilization. The colonial is in many respects a more devoted loyalist than the man at home. ”

“ Stanley called the country so inseparably associated with his name "Fatal Africa," but he did not mean the death that lay in the murderous black hand. He had in mind the thousand and one dangers that beset the stranger who does not observe the strictest rules of health and diet. From the moment of arrival the body undergoes an entirely new experience. Men succumb because they foolishly think they can continue the habits of civilization. Alcohol is the curse of all the hot countries. ”

“ The Rhodes impress is everywhere. Now I had arrived at the cap-stone of it all, the domain that bears his name and which he added to the British Empire.
Less than two hours after the immigration inspector had given me the once-over on the frontier I was in Bulawayo, metropolis of Rhodesia, which sprawls over the veldt just like a bustling Kansas community spreads out over the prairie. It is definitely American in energy and atmosphere. Save for the near-naked blacks you could almost imagine yourself in Idaho or Montana back in the days when our West was young. ”

“ You pass the ruins of Kitchener's blockhouses,—they really ended the Boer War—and almost before you realize it, you cross the Modder River, where British military prestige got a bloody repulse. Instinctively there come to mind the struggles of Cronje, DeWet, Joubert, and the rest of those Boer leaders who made this region a small Valhalla.
Late in the afternoon of the second day you suddenly get a "feel" of industry. The veldt becomes populated and before long huge smokestacks loom against the sky. ”

“ As soon as Leopold and Ryan finally got together the king said, "The Congo must have American engineers. They are the best in the world." Thus it came about that Central Africa, like South Africa, came under the galvanizing hand of the Yankee technical expert. At Kimberley and Johannesburg, however, the task was comparatively easy. The mines were accessible and the country was known. With Central Africa it was a different and more dangerous matter. The land was wild, hostile natives abounded on all sides, and going in was like firing a shot in the dark. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ I had gone into the wilds to escape from economic unrest and all the confusion that has followed in its wake, yet here in the heart of Central Africa, I found our old friend the High Cost of Living working overtime and provoking a spirited protest from primitive savages! It proves that there is neither caste, creed nor colour-line in the pocket-book. ”

“ He alone makes the schedule of each trip, arriving and departing at will. Time in the Congo counts for naught. It is in truth the land of leisure. For the man who wants to move fast, water travel is a nightmare. Accustomed as I was to swift transport, I spent a year every day.
The skipper of the "Louis Cousin" was no exception to his kind. He was a big Norwegian named Behn,—many of his colleagues are Scandinavians,—and he had spent eighteen years in the Congo. He knew every one of the thousand nooks, turns, snags and sand-bars of the Lualaba. ”

“ Most people do not realize that the Union of South Africa has two capitals. Capetown with the House of Parliament is the center of legislation, while Pretoria, the ancient Kruger stronghold, with its magnificent new Union buildings atop a commanding eminence, is the fountain-head of administration. With Irene only ten miles away it is easy for Smuts to live with his family after the adjournment of Parliament, and go in to his office at Pretoria every day. ”

“ The part that Americans had in the development of Kimberley is slight compared with their participation in the exploitation of the Rand gold mines. Not only were they the real pioneers in opening up this greatest of all gold fields but they loomed large in the drama of the Jameson Raid. One of their number, John Hays Hammond, the best-known of the group, was sentenced to death for his rôle in it. The entire technical fabric of the Rand was devised and established by men born, and who had the greater part of their experience, in the United States. ”

“ While the odious traffic has long ceased to exist, you occasionally meet an old native who bears the scars of battle with the marauders and who can tell harrowing tales of the cruelties they inflicted.
The slave raiders began their operations in the Congo in 1877, the same year in which Stanley made his historic march across Africa from Zanzibar to the north of the Congo. It was the great explorer who unconsciously blazed the way for the man-hunters. They followed him down the Lualaba River as far as Stanley Falls and discovered what was to them a real human treasure-trove. ”