l Africa of its bone and
sinew every year, was brought to an end.

The world is more or less familiar with subsequent Congo history. In
1904 arose the first protest against the so-called atrocities
perpetrated on the blacks, and the Congo became the center of an
international dispute that nearly lost Belgium her only colonial
possession. In the light of the revelations brought about by the Great
War, and to which I have referred in a previous chapter, it is obvious
that a considerable part of this crusade had its origin in Germany and
was fomented by Germanophiles of the type of Sir Roger Casement, who was
hanged in the Tower of London. During the World War E. D. Morel, his
principal associate in the atrocity campaign, served a jail sentence in
England for attempting to smuggle a seditious document into an enemy
country.

With the atrocity business we are not concerned. The only atrocities
that I saw in the Congo were the slaughter of my clothes on the native
washboard, usually a rock, and the American jitney that broke down and
left me stranded in the Kasai jungle. As a matter of fact, the Belgian
rule in the Congo has swung round to another extreme, for the Negro
there has more freedom of movement and less responsibility for action
than in any other African colony. To round out this brief history, the
Congo was ceded to Belgium in 1908 and has been a Belgian colony ever
since.

We can now go on with the journey. From Bulawayo I travelled northward
for three days past Victoria Falls and Broken Hill, through the
undeveloped reaches of Northern Rhodesia, where you can sometimes see
lion-tracks from the car windows, and where the naked Barotses emerge
from the wilds and stare in big-eyed wonder at the passing trains. Until
recently the telegraph service was considerably impaired by the
curiosity of elephants who insisted upon knocking down the poles.

While I was in South Africa alarming reports were published about a
strike in the Congo and I was afraid that it would interfere with my
journey. This strike was without doubt one of the most unique in the
history of all labor troubles. The whole Congo administration "walked
out," when their request for an increase in pay was refused. The
strikers included Government agents, railway, telegraph and telephone
employes, and steamboat captains. Even the one-time cannibals employed
on all public construction quit work. It was a natural procedure for
them. Not a wheel turned;