Rumours are growing more frequent that the Belgian authorities on
the Upper Congo have suffered a series of defeats, that their native troops have mutinied, and that Baron Dhanis, the Commander-in-Chief, and Major Lothaire are prisoners. Indeed, according to an account in the Pall Mall Gazette of Tuesday, evidently written by one who is thoroughly informed, the valley of the Upper Congo may be considered lost. King Leopold II. has been so moved by these accounts that he has issued a manifesto to refute them. His 3Iajesty's theory is that "there is no Congo revolt," but only " a simple rebellion of soldiers," "occasional lapses into barbarism being in the nature of things." The rebels must soon disperse to obtain provisions, and "the Free State, therefore, will not relax its efforts in the path assigned." The King, it will be observed, neither affirms nor denies the prevailing rumours, but he is evidently alarmed, and with reason, for if his black troops join the enemy, as reported, the Congo State must disappear. Unless we misread all the published information, his agents have lost all authority in the Upper Congo, and will shortly be face to face with anarchy threughout the vast lower valley. If that should prove true, flee King must sell his dominions either to France
or Great Britain, preferentially the former. They will ruin any individual, and it is only ae an individual that he possesses them.
