selves fit for fighting. After the pacifi- 
cation of these regions, which actually 
contained so many able-bodied men, it 
was surely better that they should be 
intelligently organized so that their 
unemployed energies might serve the 
progress of civilization, than that they 
should be left to drunkenness and sloth. 
In most of the districts there was nothing 
of value but rubber and ivory, and the 
natives were put to work to collect some 
of the rubber. They prefer this work 
to porterage or road-making, which latter 
they consider a woman’s occupation. 
The freedom of trade and the intro- 
duction of currency could hardly have 
been brought about more rapidly. In 
many districts however, the first arrivals 
oS A pment 
- % 
Pygmies from Nala, in the Uele District. 
agricultural tribes for vegetables. 
plaster casts to be made of their faces 
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
representing this freedom of trade were 
of the most ordinary class of adventurers, 
who considered the native but an object 
for their greed. The wisdom of with- 
holding these people so long was abun- 
dantly apparent, for only the confidence 
which the government officers enjoyed 
among the natives saved the lives of 
some of them. These natives are rather 
independent in their decisions and rash 
in action. . 
To-day the country is well policed; 
the natives are — or at least were before 
the war — perfectly peaceful, and in our 
six years among them we never saw a 
single atrocity. Fortunately the posi- 
tion of the lower administrative officers 
has been rendered much more attractive, 
They live by hunting, and exchange their spoils with the 
Two hundred of them visited the expedition and many allowed 
