Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/535

 INHABITANTS OF THE CONGO. 441 political ties must necessarily be somewhat lax in these regions where the com- munications are extremely difficult, and where the subject tribes may easily migrate from clearing to clearing. Hence these associations cohstitute rather a confederacy of petty autonomous republics than monarchical states in the strict sense of the term. The arrival of the Arabs on the east and of the Europeans on the west coast has naturally tended much to bring about the work of disintegration, by which the inland states have been gradually modified. Thus the intervention of the Portuguese ultimately effected the ruin of the Congo empire, notwithstanding its great political cohesion. In these historic transformations, stimulated by the presence of the foreigner on the seaboard, the elements of good and evil become strangely and diversely intermingled. While certain tribes, exposed to the raids of slave-hunters, relapsed into a state of profound degradation and savagery, the Congolese peoples generally became enriched by the development of agricul- ture. The introduction of maize, manioc, and other alimentary plants, is one of the chief benefits conferred by Europeans on the natives, more than compensating for the evils caused by the sale of firearms and spirits. Four centuries ago the Congo tribes lived mainly by hunting wild beasts and man himself, by fishing, or at most a rudimentary agriculture, whereas they now depend altogether on a well- developed system of husbandry, enabling them to increase tenfold without exhaust- ing the fertile soil. Had European influence in the Congo regions been represented by traders alone, the part played by them in the history of Africa could have scarcely been inferior to that of the Arab dealers. But before Stanley's journey across the continent their factories were confined to the low-lying region of the estuarj^ while the Zanzibar Arabs freely penetrated beyond Tanganyika, 800 or 900 miles from the Indian Ocean. Stanley, Cameron, and many other European explorers were fain to avail themselves of their services, but for which the Congo basin would still be an unknown region. When Stanley resolved to push westwards along the line of the main stream, he was accompanied as far as the Falls by the Arab Tippo-Tip at the head of seven hundred men, and it was by the co-operation of the same slave-dealer that he was afterwards enabled to organise the expedition for the relief of Emin Pasha in the Upper Nile valley. The Arabs above all others have hitherto benefited by the European discoveries in the Upper Congo basin, where their caravans now penetrate victoriously into the vast region lying between the Nilotic lakes and the Lo-Mami river. But their trading stations scattered over the country deal not only in ivory and other local produce, but also and chiefly in slaves. Taking advantage of, and even fomenting the petty intertribal wars, they procure the captives on easy terms, distributing them as so much merchandise throughout the markets of the interior and even on the seaboard. But they reserve the young men, arming them with rifles and thus maintaining bands of combatants irresistible to the surrounding populations, rudely equipped and lack- ing all political coherence. Hence the great material advantages enjoyed by the Arabs over their European rivals, who are compelled to deal with freemen and to 92— AF