HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



For a long time the officials stood apart from those who 

 were coming in to open the country, and thereby to assist 

 in relieving the British taxpayer of another burden, but 

 nowadays their attitude is not quite so unfriendly. 



Certain tribes of natives are not allowed to pass out 

 of Uganda into the Congo. Some of our boys had signed 

 on at Kampala as being of a certain race, but on our 

 reaching Hoima they had the audacity to go and inform 

 the official at the Boma (native word for Stockade, in this 

 case the Commissioner's office) that they were natives 

 of an entirely different district from that which they had 

 stated down at Kampala. In some cases this proved 

 correct, and those boys would be unable to go across the 

 Nile. They received no punishment for the imposture, 

 but were allowed to go scot-free back to their homes. 

 Many tried to deceive us on this point, but their names 

 were sufficient to convince the Collector that they were 

 lying. 



A native can say or do several things when near a 

 Boma ; you must not touch him, and he knows it. He 

 is cheeky and lazy, but when away from civilized parts 

 he becomes a cringing submissive character. Dark 

 stories of the Congo had evidently reached the ears of 

 the boys from out-of-work, lazy native scoundrels in 

 the town, many of whom are past masters in the art of 

 telling lies. Invariably they are those with a thin veneer 

 of civilization about them. To the man with a safari 

 passing through Hoima, I say, get your business done 

 with all speed and clear out. Before you have been there 

 many hours the local native liars are busily engaged in 

 sowing the seed of discontent among your boys, telling 

 them all sorts of tales of how the white men shoot their 

 boys as soon as they reach the Congo, of terrible floggings, 

 and so forth. Naturally your carrier, who has probably 

 never been away from his hut and village before, is soon 

 frightened by these lying statements. He may be a 



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