CONGO FREE STATE. 



Belgian stations on Lake Tanganyika. This 

 new route is less subject to delays than the one 

 from Bagamoyo. Lieut. Long could not. conn- 

 to tiie relief of Capt. Jacques till February, 

 isii:;. War between the (iernuins and the na- 

 tives kept him back, and when peace was con- 

 cluded it was impossible to find porters. Mean- 

 while, ('apt. Jacques was hard pressed by the 

 Arabs. On Sept. 7, 1892, he attacked the forti- 

 fied camp that they had established near his 

 post, but was compelled to retreat for lack of 

 ammunition. Before the arrival, in August, of 

 Delcommune's party, the chief Arab slave-trader 

 and military chieftain, who operated in this re- 

 gion Kumali/.a. of Ujiji held his little force 

 closely invested in Albert ville, with the inten- 

 tion of starving it out. The siege was raised 

 when Lieut. Long arrived, and the Arabs retired 

 after their bonta or fort was taken and destroyed, 

 although they greatly outnumbered the Belgian 

 force. Kumaliza was acting in concert with 

 Moharra and all the Arab chiefs to the west and 

 north in an effort to sweep the Belgians from 

 the center of Africa, and it was the success of 

 the arms of the Congo State in the Congo region 

 that caused him finally to desist, and saved the 

 anti-slavery settlements from extinction. 



Katanga Expeditions. Four expeditions 

 operated between 1890 and 1893 in the vast 

 tract lying between the lakes of Tanganyika, 

 Moero, and Bangweolo, with the object of open- 

 ing its rich resources to Belgian enterprise and 

 planting there the flag of the Free State. This 

 region, situated at the southeastern extremity 

 of the treaty limits of the Congo State, is popu- 

 larly known as Katanga, from one of the tribes 

 inhabiting it which had subjugated several 

 others. The expeditions were sent out by the 

 Katanga Company, which had received a con- 

 cession for the commercial exploitation of this 

 particular region, and were led by Lieut. Paul 

 Le Marinel, Alexandra Delcommune, Capt. Lu- 

 cien Bia, and Capt. Stairs. Lieut. Le Marinel left 

 the fortified camp of Lusambo, on the Sankuru, 

 on Dec. 29, 1890. Delcommune entered the 

 country by way of the Lomami, departing from 

 Gongo Lutita on May 13, 1891 ; Capt. Bia ad- 

 vanced from Lusambo on Nov. 11, 1891 ; and 

 Capt. Stairs, coming from the east coast, set out 

 from Mpala, on Lake Tanganyika at the end of 

 the same month. The country through which 

 they passed has been turned into a desert by 

 Arab slave raids, which have compelled the peo- 

 ple, instead of living in little communities of a 

 thousand persons or so, to collect in huge vil- 

 lages containing 9,000 or 10,000, separated by 

 wide stretches of deserted waste. Delcommune 

 lost half his 200 porters before he reached Lu- 

 pongo, the first of these settlements, and after 

 replacing them he left 50 more dead on the 

 road in the next week. The famished party re- 

 freshed themselves with hippopotamus meat 

 when they reached the Lomami. In a battle 

 with a caravan of Arabs, who were encouraged 

 by the brother of Msiri, the tyrant of Uganda, 

 Dr. Briart, the surgeon, was killed, and hence- 

 forth they had to fight their way to Bunkeia, 

 Msiri's capital, where they arrived on Oct. 6, 

 1891. A Swedish officer, Lieut. Hakansson, who 

 usually commanded the military operations, was 

 killed in an encounter with the natives. Msiri, 



a political ally of the Arabs, who respected his 

 dominions because they could not cope with his 

 formidable forces, received the ex|>t-dition with 

 politic friendliness, and gave permission to ex- 

 plore his dominions, as he had the pioneer expe- 

 dition of Lieut. Le Marinel, which made its en- 

 try into the King's capital on April 18, and de- 

 parted on June 11, 1891, leaving Lieut. Legat 

 and a small force at the fortified camp that was 

 established at Lafoi, near Bunkeia. Capt. Bia 

 reached Bunkeia on Feb. 4, 1892, and there met 

 the party of Capt. Stairs. A few days before 

 Capt. Bodson and King Msiri had both been 

 killed in an affray regarding the recognition of 

 the flag of the Free State, and Capt. Stairs had 

 taken possession of the country and received 

 the submission of Msiri's vassals, and of his son, 

 who was installed as King of Katanga. Stairs 

 sickened and died on his return trip to the Zan- 

 zibar coast, and his expedition suffered terribly 

 from famine. Bia also fell a victim to the dead- 

 ly climate, and the expedition was brought back 

 to Europe by Lieut. Francqui. Delcommune 

 made an extensive exploration of Katanga, and 

 visited the copper mines of Katabi. Msiri tried 

 to drag him into a war with the Bassanga, the 

 most numerous and warlike tribe in his domin- 

 ions, but Delcomraune refused, and even ob- 

 tained an escort from the old tyrant. In the 

 vicinity of Ntenke the band of 600 persons suf- 

 fered from starvation, and was reduced to 200 

 before it reached the village of Mussima, where 

 food was obtained. Reaching the banks of the 

 Lualaba on Dec. 20, 1891, they made canoes in 

 which to descend the river, but were obliged to 

 leave it at Nzilo, where the river contracts and 

 descends in a torrent broken by cataracts 

 through a narrow gorge for 48 miles. They 

 dragged their boats for several miles over the 

 land, and then famine again began to thin their 

 ranks, compelling them to retrace their steps to 

 Bunkeia in order to take the route to Tangan- 

 yika. They reached Bunkeia on June 8, 1892, 

 and made their way to the shore of Lake Tan- 

 ganyika by a northeasterly route, crossing the 

 Luapala where it emerges from Lake IVfoero. 

 This lake is only an expansion of the Luapala, 

 which is found to be the main branch of the 

 Congo. When Delcommune reached Rumbi, 

 now called Baudouinville, he learned from Capt. 

 Joubert that Capt. Jacques was besieged by 

 Arabs at Albertville, and hastened to his relief. 

 From there he descended the Lukuga to the 

 Lualaba and explored Lake Landji. Instead of 

 descending the Lualaba to Nyangwe and Riba 

 Riba, where the expedition would have been 

 annihilated by the Arabs, he made his way across 

 the country to Lusambo, for he had been warned 

 of the Arab revolt bv Mfimbi, a son of Msiri. 

 Dhanis had crossed the Lomami and occupied 

 the country between that river and the Lualaba, 

 and both Bia and Delcommune were able to 

 leave men and arms to strengthen his force. 



War with the Congo Arabs. After the 

 massacre of Hodister and his companions in 1892, 

 and the general revolt of the Arabs of the upper 

 Congo region, the Free State authorities placed 

 in the field one of the strongest military forces 

 they had ever collected, for the purpose of re- 

 establishing their power and punishing the reb- 

 els. The expedition, which was commanded by 



