BOOKS.
THE RIVER CONGO.* APART from the obvious opportuneness of its appearance at the -present time, and in spite of trifling errors in style and offences against good-taste, to which we shall presently allude, this
* The &Tow Congo. from its Mouth to B61656, with a General Description of the Natural History and Anthropology of its Western Basin. By H. H. Johnston, F.R.G.S. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington. 1885. volume is very nearly all that a work of exploration should be. To begin with, it does not cover too much ground. Mr. H. H. Johnston left St. Paul de Loanda for the Congo in October, 1882. In December he started from its mouth, known as Banana Point, and by comparatively easy stages, of which Vivi, where he met Mr. Stanley, and Leopoldville on Stanley Pool, were the most important, be explored both the lower and the upper division of the river as far as Mob& beyond which he found it unsafe at the time to attempt to penetrate into Central Africa. Retracing his steps, he spent six weeks—" the very happiest time I have known in Africa "—at Msuata, the meeting-place of three interesting races,—the Bayansi, the Batek6, and the Wabfima. His observations of the scenery, natural his- tory, and anthropology of the Upper Congo would seem to have been made under the most favourable auspices, and to have been only rendered more piquant by an occa- sional adventure. Tearing himself from the enchantments of this Central-African Capua, he again found his way to the mouth of the river. But although Mr. Johnston necessarily travelled over several hundreds of miles of land and water, he does not appear to have hurried himself, and he certainly does not hurry his readers. Then he is blessed with the training both of an artist and of a man of science, and what is even better for a writer of his class, with the special enthusiasm that clings to the bright side of thirty, when a man, according to Balthasar Grecian, ought to have both the lion's courage and the peacock's passion for splendour. Mr. Johnston falls, as we have said, into some errors of style. In his volume there are references to "dear mother earth" and "the clerk of the weather" which ought, perhaps, to be put down to youth and literary in- experience ; while "this arcane" may be attributed to hurry. He occasionally, however, shows a tendency to slang, as when he describes one of the chiefs on the Congo as "now a most virtuous, respectable, law-abiding person, quite fit to be a church- warden, with a leetle leaning, perhaps, to a gorgeous cere- monial," which he will do well to check. Although Mr. Johnston honestly tries to do justice to the work and the character of the missionaries with whom he came in contact, we do not altogether like big tone in regard to their teachings. His remark about "Christianity being a religion which, in my opinion, they [the members of an African tribe] are, in their present mental condition, totally unfitted to under- stand," simply shows that he himself does not under- stand the vital meaning of Christianity. In "my heart goes out to the erring (P) Jews of old," the mark of interrogation is either poor fun, or rather unworthy sneering even for an ardent and "emancipated" evolutionist. It is only fair to Mr. Johnston, however, to say that he does full justice to kindnesses he received at the hands of missionaries, and that he does not go out of his way to thrust his creed or creedlessness upon his readers. What with his high spirits, his joy in, and love for describing, nature, Mr. Johnston frequently reminds us of Charles Waterton rather than of Mr. Stanley, or Mr. Joseph Thomson, or Livingstone, or any other of his more immediate predecessors in the work of exploring the Dark Continent. We may indeed quote and apply to Mr. Johnston the language used by Sydney Smith of Waterton and of his wanderings in South America, nearly sixty years ago. "He abounds with good feeling, and has written a very enter- taining book, which hurries the reader out of his European parlour into the heart of tropical forests, and gives, over the rules and the cultivation of the civilised parts of the earth, a momentary superiority to the freedom of the savage and the wild beauties of Nature."
The most interesting portion of Mr. Johnston's volume is that which deals with the Upper Congo. In recent communica- tions to some of the daily newspapers on the subject of the Congo Treaty, which be regards as far from a bad bargain for this country, he says that the so-called Lower Congo is, for all purposes of navigation, an impasse, a waterway leading nowhere, and terminating above Vivi, at the Yellala Falls, which completely bar all access between the Upper and Lower Congo. Between Banana Point and Vivi, the first of Mr. Stanley's great stations, there is no place of very great importance, except Boma, which is about eighty miles from the month of the river, and contains many factories belonging to English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Belgian companies. But it is a very unhealthy place, as the heat is excessive, and as there lie behind the European houses great swamps and fetid marshes that breed fever, and mosquitoes little less terrible than fever ; and, indeed, the chief advantage of the Upper Congo region lies in its superior healthiness to that of the coast districts. What makes the Lower Congo de- partment of Mr. Johnston's book most readable, therefore, is the description he gives of its vegetable and animal life, of the Irissochilus giganteus, the Phceniz spinosa, the Scopus umbrella, the Pogonorynchus ceogaster, and the like. The following ac- count of the lagoons of the Lower Congo will show what we mean by comparing Mr. Johnston's style with Waterton's :— "A rustling in the vegetation, and a large varanus lizard slips into the water, or on some trampled bank a crocodile lies asleep in the warm sun, with a fixed smirk hanging about his grim muzzle. These lagoons are places that are seething with life—life that is ever stirring, striving, and active—and when you suddenly arrive, slipping and splashing in the watery footholds, the sudden silence that greets you is the frightened, expectant hush of a thousand appre- hensive creatures. Beyond the lagoons and this strip of mud and water rises an almost impenetrable barrier of forest, nearly im- possible to pass by land, but which is fortunately pierced by many little arms or natural canals of the Congo, that intersect it and penetrate to the firm, dry land beyond. As you paddle gently in a native canoe through the watery valleys of this vegetable Venice, the majestic trees, firmly interlaced above and overarching the canal, shrouding all in pale-green gloom, the glimpses and vistas through the forest that you get reveal many beautiful forms of bird and insect life. Barbets, with red foreheads and large, notched bills, are sitting in stupid meditation on the twigs, giving a harsh and mechanical squeak, if the too near approach of the canoe disturbs their reverie. Little African woodpeckers are creeping up the branches, deftly turn- ing round towards the unseen side when they observe you ; large, green mantises, or praying insects,' ere chasing small flies with their great, pouncing forelegs, and every now and then a blue roller. bird snaps up a mantis, in spite of its wonderful assimilation to its leafy surroundings. Farther into the forest, the canal, a blind alley of water, stops, the soil becomes solid and well raised, and a native path is discernible, leading through the now more park-like and formal clumps of forest to a distant village, whence the crowing of cocks and the occasional shouts of the inhabitants can be heard. Bat the birds do not lessen because we are approaching the abode of men. Out of the bosky trees little troops of black and white hornbills suddenly start, and flap their loose, irregular flight to another refuge. Violet plantain-eaters gleam out in their beauty from time to time ; golden cuckoos, yellow-vented bulbuls, green fruit pigeons, grey parrots, parrots that are grey and blue and yellow-shouldered, green love- birds, a multitude of little waxbills, a medley of diverse and beautiful birds, enliven this walk through the forest, along the black, peat path, with their loud cries, their lovely plumage, and their rapid movements."
The Yellala Falls, some nine miles from Vivi, which render the Congo in navigable for a considerable period, were the object of a special visit by Mr. Johnston, under the guidance of a friendly native chief. We should say from his description of them that, although not deficient in grandeur, they are angry rather than grand.
At the Vivi Station of the International Association, Mr. Johnston found Mr. Stanley, playing, with great success, his part of uncrowned king or benevolent autocrat of the Congo. Mr. Stanley supplied him with Zanzibari servants to attend him in his further explorations, and of them Mr. Johnston speaks in the highest terms, as a combination of Arab brain and Negro physique. On January 7th, 1883, Mr. Johnston left Vivi for that remarkable lake or expansion of the Congo known as Stanley Pool. The chief stations on the way bear the names of lsangila and Manyanga. At Manyanga, owing to the scarcity of European and the abundance of native food, Mr. Johnston was able to test the possibility of living on the products of the country entirely,—obviously a very important matter, if there is to be anything like a general rush of Europeans to the Congo. He says :—
" On the whole, I had little to complain of We had no tea, coffee, cocoa, wine, sugar, butter, or bread, it is true ; but with a little ingenuity, substitutes were found for many of these adjuncts to Euro- pean living. The goats gave plenty of milk, and we drank it hot, and made believe' it was tea. Palm wine VCRS our only intoxicant, and kikwanga ' in some way took the place of bread. Palm oil fried our meats, enriched our stews, and fed the lamps that lighted up our evening meal. We had superb desserts of massive pine-apples, bananas made puddings that were richly sweet, and plantains took the place of potatoes. I never ate with better appetite, and rarely lived more happily."
Mr. Johnston is in raptures with Stanley Pool, "a great, cup-like basin," about twenty-five miles long and sixteen broad, whose incomplete rim is formed by sierras of peaked and picturesque mountains, ranging on the southern side from 1,000 to 3,000 feet in height. Mr. Johnston places little value on Brazzaville, a concession of territory to the French Republic, nine miles in length, which Mr. Stanley's well-known rival in Congo exploration has secured. It consists of a few huts, half buried in bananas, and backed by thick forests, on the lqw-lying part of the Pool, and Mr. Johnston thinks it may become a rheumatic swamp. M. de Brazza should, if he could, have fixed. his station on the high and breezy "Dover Cliffs "—these, how- ever, according to Mr. Johnston, resemble the scenery round Lyme Regis, rather than the genuine Dover Cliffs—that rise. above the Pool ; or Kallins, Point, a red cliff towering about 50 ft. above the water, on the south bank of the expanding river, and which may become the Gibraltar of the Pool. Of the prospects of Leopoldville, Mr. Stanley's station, it will suffice to quote what Mr. Johnston says :—
" Leopoldville, situated at the western entrance to Stanley Pool, is destined to be the great empire city of Central Africa. From its shores, there are, according to Stanley's calculations, 4,520 miles of free navigation north, and south, and east, into. the heart of Africa. It will one day be the terminus of a. railway from the coast, and the starting-point of a river journey half across Africa. The ivory, copper, and iron, the spices, the wax, and the gums of the interior will meet in its marts the costumes of London and Paris, and products of the manufactories of the Old World. Or, in another sense, the raw material which is poured into Leopoldville from the interior will return to it from the exterior ia other forms."
From Leopoldville, Mr. Johnston proceeded, as we have already seen, as far up the Congo as B6]6b6, whose native king, Ibaka, seems to be most remarkable for his hat, a wonderful structure of plaited grass, which leaves its owner's head only once in a year, contains stores of cloth and other valuables, and is adorned with lizards cut out of tinfoil, and the- label of the only champagne-bottle that ever reached B616b6-
In going to B616b6, Mr. Johnston tapped, so to speak, the more- densely peopled region of the Congo. He dwells enthusiasti- cally on the physical elegance of some of its tribes. Of the civilisation of the natives of B616b6, who belong to the Bayansi race, he speaks highly, as being, although purely indigenous, or
a higher order than is generally found in savage Africa. Their houses, arms, and household implements are constructed with skill and taste ; they are great traders, and travel many- hundred miles up and down the river, engaged in traffick- ing their ivory, slaves, and smoked fish. In special chapters, and in digressions which do not strike one as offensive or abruptly interjectional, however, Mr. Johnston- treats at considerable length of the anthropology as well as of the- natural history of the Congo. His classification of the races of this region seems a sound one, and his remarks on the habits of the tribes, and such phenomena associated with their life as phallic worship, are marked by no inconsiderable amount. of acuteness. The races of the Upper Congo are gay,.
after their fashion. They have few, if any, gloomy superstitions. They are "kindly, light-hearted, and full of sensibility to beauty. They are fond of colour and of music, and indulge in dancing that has much meaning and grace." In the- meantime, however, we are concerned mainly with the political possibilities of the population of the Congo basin, which has- been calculated by Air. Stanley at 49,000,000, or 55 to the.
square mile ! Just at present, this huge mass does not own a single head or emperor. Mr. Johnston dissents from the.
idea which has been broached of introducing some sort of poli- tical cohesion among the Congo tribes, and for reasons which- cannot be considered too carefully or too soon :—
" What has hitherto made Mr. Stanley's work so rapid and so com- paratively easy," he says, "has been the want of cohesion amongst the native tribes; he has had no great, jealous empire to contend with, as he would have had farther north or farther south. If one village declined to let him settle among them, the next town, out of rivalry, received him with open arms. There has been no mot d' ordre, and this has enabled him to effectually implant himself in their- midst. By banding the native kinglets in union, union which would inevitably turn them with race jealousy against the white man, the entry of civilisation into the Congo countries will be hindered, and this great work made dependent on the caprices of an African despot.. The black man, though he may make a willing subject, can never rule. These people are well disposed in their present condition to. receive civilisation, but the civilisation must come not as a humble- suppliant, but as a monarch. It must be able to inspire respect as well as naïve wonder, and this is what the expedition conducted by Mr.. Stanley has succeeded in doing."
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