THE CONGO FREE STATE 263 



— Lieutenant Boyd Alexander,* Mr. A. H. Savage 

 Landor,t and the late Mr. Marcus DormanJ — have 

 travelled widely in the Congo Free State, and have 

 recorded favourable reports of what they saw in 

 three different parts of the country. None of those 

 gentlemen had the smallest personal interest in the 

 State, and it is impossible to believe that any one of 

 them was influenced in his report by other than the 

 purest motives. It may be objected that the opinions 

 formed by travellers in passing through a country 

 must be merely impressions, and cannot be of any 

 great value. Such a charge might fairly be brought 

 against the impression of a country caught from the 

 windows of a railway-carriage, but it cannot hold 

 against the experience which you get of a country, 

 when you travel through it at a foot's pace with 

 frequent halts of days and weeks, and when you are 

 constantly in touch with the native inhabitants and 

 very often with the officials of the Government. It 

 may also fairly be maintained that a passing traveller 

 sees many things, faults and merits alike, to v/hich 

 the man who sees them daily is blind. 



It is as easy to fall into the snare of exaggeration 

 on one side as on the other. One tells us that the 

 Congo is a shambles swimming in blood, and another 

 that it is the negro's paradise. But, it need hardly 

 be said, neither of these pictures is the true one ; 



* ' From the Niger to the Nile,' 1907. 



f 'Across Widest Africa,' 1907. 



I ' A Tour in the Congo Free State,' 1905. 



