Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/537

 thousand square miles in extent, but without official recognition, because depending for the movement of exchanges on the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Without a seaport on the Indian Ocean the Arabs could' not possibly maintain their footing in the country, were their ivory trade with Bombay permanently interrupted.

The committee established under the presidency of the Kin ig of the Belgians after Stanley's expedition of 1878, for the purpose of studying the relations in the

Upper Congo, was soon transformed into the "Congo International Association," which undertook the lofty mission of conquering the country by peaceful means, suppressing slavery, encouraging legitimate trade, and fostering a feeling of brotherhood between the European pioneers and the native populations. But before this mission was well commenced the Association assumed the crown, so to say, by transforming itself in 1884 into a monarchy to the benefit of its royal founder.

The new empire, entitled the "Congo Free State," is limited southwards by the estuary, and thence by a geometrical line drawn to the Levee, some 12 miles north of the sixth parallel of south latitude, which parallel it