The Eastern Congo 



refused or frittered away and the methods employed to 

 obtain the gold remained for many years in the same primitive 

 stage as when the industry first commenced. The gold, 

 which is found in alluvial form over a large area, has been 

 scraped and dug for with but little attention to system or 

 method, with the result that only some fifty-six per cent, 

 of the actual gold present in the soil has been collected, the 

 remaining forty-four per cent, being thrown aside with the 

 deposit containing it into big dumps, after a single washing 

 over sluice-boxes, resulting in a considerable portion of it 

 being carried away and lost, by exposure to the heavy rains. 

 Before and during the Great War, the Belgians, as if afraid 

 of foreigners within their gates or unable to be masters in 

 their own country, in a weak moment decided that no one 

 should be allowed in or around these mines without a special 

 permit from the Governor of the colony, and the permission 

 I am told was difficult to obtain. What there was to be 

 afraid of in anyone viewing the mines without this fuss it 

 is difficult to see, for alluvial gold is hardly picked up by 

 the handful even in the Congo. 



In spite of mismanagement, however, and the wasteful 

 methods of working the alluvial wash, twenty-three tons 

 of gold valued at £3,600,000 were obtained from the State 

 mines of Kilo and Moto up to the end of the year 1919 ; 

 one nugget being found weighing a little less than four 

 and a half kilos. 



In the last eighteen months there has been another period 

 of increased activity, and the running of the mines placed 

 in the hands of an organised company with shareholders — 

 styled the Regie des Mines de Kilo-Moto — under the manage- 

 ment of one of Belgium's most able colonial administrators, 



184 



