AND THE CONGO FOREST 



197 



the small village of Lui);hizula, whit-ji was about ten miles to the west of 

 INIbeiii, and in the forest. The climb to this village was a very arduous 

 one, and its altitude must liave been not far off 5,000 feet, situated on 

 the more broken, forest-covered dip of the plateau ridge between the 

 heights of ]julega on the north and the Albert Edward mountains on the 

 south-west. Luiianzula's village had been the headquarters of a celebrated 

 Manyema slave-raider, who had lived here for a long time with his 

 Swahili following. I am not sure that the Manyema had not Arab blood 

 in his veins. He was at any rate generally referred to locally as " the 

 Arab," and he certainly professed INluliammadanism. He had built for 



-<«^». 



l6o. IX THE CONGO FOKEST : A CLEARING NEAR LUPAXZULA'.S 



himself on either side of a broad street houses which were astonishingly 

 Arab in design, for this remote corner of the Congo Free State. The 

 carved, massive wooden doors might have been imported from Zanzibar, 

 but I expect they were made locally by a Zanzibari carpenter. In the 

 gardens at the backs of the houses papaws and lime-trees had been 

 ])lanted. " The whole place might have been a village on the island of 

 Zanzibar. 



In spire of this element of Arab civilisation which the slave-trader 

 had certainly implanted in the Congo Forest, he had made himself 

 notorious for his ravages and cruelties. ]Sumbers of natives had been 

 horribly mutilated, hands and feet lopped off, and women's breasts cut 

 away. All these people talked Swahili, and explained to me that these 



