Down the Congo 



Although only still half-realising the value of their pos- 

 session, the broadening effect of the war has left a profound 

 impression on the Belgians, and has had a great deal to do 

 with their awakened interest in the Congo. There is now 

 unity amongst them, a greater esprit de corps bred in the 

 trenches of Flanders and on the steppes of German East 

 Africa, that will carry these sturdy, industrious people, with 

 the untold riches of the Congo behind them, a very long way 

 indeed. They have proved their worth in the late war and 

 in the tenacious hold they retained on the Congo from the 

 early days — ^when with a mere handful of white men and 

 irregular black troops they broke the Arab power — up to 

 now, when they have shown such surprising ability in the 

 training of their native soldiers. 



Without going into unnecessary details concerning the 

 great industries set afoot in the Congo, its labour and food 

 supply, its problems and its perils, let us first pass in review 

 the riches that lie garnered twixt the four corners of this 

 forest empire, that when properly exploited will draw to 

 them the jealous eyes of all Africa. 



The outstanding feature of the Belgian Congo as a colonial 

 empire, and one which will contribute to its speedy develop- 

 ment more than any other, is its compactness, " all its eggs 

 are in one basket," so to speak — the Congo basin ; and many 

 of them can be reached and (to carry on the metaphor) hatched 

 out, through its network of waterways. True, the Kilo 

 goldfields and the Congo copper belt are on the edge of the 

 basin, but they are both rich enough to attract to themselves 

 their own transport systems without outside help. Starting 

 therefore from the south we find mountains of copper being 

 blasted away and smelted with the most up-to-date machinery 



215 



