Chapter XVII.

Concluding Remarks.

I have thus attempted to trace a picture of the Congo River in the latter days of the slave-trade, and of its lineal descendant, “L’Immigration Africaine.”  The people at large are satisfied, and the main supporters of the traffic—­the chiefs, the “medicine-men,” and the white traders—­have at length been powerless to arrest its destruction.

And here we may quote certain words of wisdom from the “Congo Expedition” in 1816:  “It is not to be expected that the effects of abolition will be immediately perceptible; on the contrary, it will probably require more than one generation to become apparent:  for effects, which have been the consequence of a practice of three centuries, will certainly continue long after the cause is removed.”  The allusion in the sentence which I have italicized, is of course, to the American exportation—­domestic slavery must date from the earliest ages.  These sensible remarks conclude with advocating “colonization in the cause of civilization;” a process which at present cannot be too strongly deprecated.

That the Nzadi is capable of supplying something better than slaves may be shown by a list of what its banks produce.  Merolla says in 1682:  “Cotton here is to be gathered in great abundance, and the shrubs it grows on are so prolific, that they never almost leave sprouting.”  Captain Tuckey ("Narrative,” p. 120) declares “the only vegetable production at Boma of any consequence in commerce is cotton, which grows wild most luxuriantly, but the natives have ceased to gather it since the English have left off trading to the river,” I will not advocate tobacco, cotton and sugar; they are indigenous, it is true, but their cultivation is hardly fitted to the African in Africa.  Copper in small quantities has been brought from the interior, but the mineral resources of the wide inland regions are wholly unknown.  If reports concerning mines on the plateau be trustworthy, there will be a rush of white hands, which must at once change, and radically change, all the conditions of the riverine country.  Wax might be supplied in large quantities; the natives, however, have not yet learnt to hive their bees.  Ivory was so despised by the slave-trade, that it was sent from the upper Congo to Mayumba and the other exporting harbours; demand would certainly produce a small but regular supply.

The two staples of commerce are now represented by palm-oil, which can be produced in quantities over the lowlands upon the whole river delta, and along the banks from the mouth to Boma, a distance of at least fifty direct miles.  The second, and the more important, is the arachis, or ground-nut, which flourishes throughout the highlands of the interior, and which, at the time of my visit, was beginning to pay.  As the experience of some thirty years on different parts of the West Coast has proved, both these articles are highly adapted to the peculiarities of the negro cultivator; they require little labour, and they command a ready, a regular, and a constant sale.