he
master of a great district between the Congo and Lake Tanganyika. At
first (1887-1888) the Congo Free State adopted Stanley's suggestion of
appointing Tipu Tib to be its governor of the Stanley Falls district, at
a salary of L30 a month[464]. So artificial an arrangement soon broke
down, and war broke out early in 1892. The forces of the Congo Free
State, led by Commandants Dhanis and Lothaire, and by Captain S.L.
Hinde, finally worsted the Arabs after two long and wearisome campaigns
waged on the Upper Congo. Into the details of the war it is impossible
to enter. The accounts of all the operations, including that of Captain
Hinde[465], are written with a certain reserve; and the impression that
the writers were working on behalf of civilisation and humanity is
somewhat blurred by the startling admissions made by Captain Hinde in a
paper read by him before the Royal Geographical Society in London, on
March 11, 1895. He there stated that the Arabs, "despite their
slave-raiding propensities," had "converted the Manyema and Malela
country into one of the most prosperous in Central Africa." He also
confessed that during the fighting the two flourishing towns, Nyangwe
and Kasongo, had been wholly swept away. In view of these statements the
results of the campaign cannot be regarded with unmixed satisfaction.

[Footnote 464: Stanley, _In Darkest Africa_, vol. i. pp. 60-70.]

[Footnote 465: _The Fall of the Congo Arabs_, by Capt. S.L. Hinde
(London, 1897).]

Such, however, was not the view taken at the time. Not long before, the
Continent had rung with the sermons and speeches of Cardinal Lavigerie,
Bishop of Algiers, who, like a second Peter the Hermit, called all
Christians to unite in a great crusade for the extirpation of slavery.
The outcome of it all was the meeting of an Anti-Slavery Conference at
Brussels, at the close of 1889, in which the Powers that had framed the
Berlin Act again took part. The second article passed at Brussels
asserted among other things the duties of the Powers "in giving aid to
commercial enterprises to watch over their legality, controlling
especially the contracts for service entered into with natives." The
abuses in the trade in firearms were to be carefully checked and
controlled.

Towards the close of the Conference a proposal was brought forward (May
10, 1890) to the effect that, as the suppression of the slave-trade and
the work of upraising the natives would entail great expense,