TREATMENT OF NATIVES 233 



State. At Boma I interviewed a legal luminary of 

 a still higher rank, and that functionary, being a 

 person of intelligence and having less time at his 

 disposal than had his legal brethren higher up the 

 river, became convinced of my innocence after a 

 couple of hours of cross-examination, and I was 

 allowed to leave the country without paying the 

 fine of twenty-five francs to which I was liable. 



I have mentioned this very trifling incident in 

 order to illustrate, for the benefit of the uninformed, 

 the lengths to which protection of the natives has 

 been carried in the Congo Free State. My offence 

 was not that I had compelled the man to work for 

 me, which I had done, but that I had hit him. 

 I treated the obstreperous person in the same way in 

 which stern parents used to (and possibly do still) 

 treat unruly children, and found myself liable to 

 punishment in consequence. Correction paternelle 

 is supposed to be legally permissible in certain cases, 

 and if a left-handed slap on the face is not correction 

 paternelle I cannot imagine what is, but it was not 

 allowed in my case. The judicial authorities, whom 

 I consulted, informed me that my proper course was 

 to go to the nearest State post and lodge a formal 

 complaint against the man for being noisy and 

 insolent. It is true that in this case the nearest post 

 was only two days' march distant, but it might have 

 been fourteen days' march, and in any case such a 

 course was quite impracticable in the face of necessity. 

 I am not for a moment defending harsh treatment of 



