Page:Morel-The Black Mans Burden.djvu/151

 They learned of floggings and burning of villages, of rape and mutilation, of natives being used as targets for revolver practice, and as human experiments to test the efficacy of dynamite cartridges; of "hostage-houses" in which men, women and children perished—and all this in connection with the procuring of india-rubber. The sensation was considerable. "Interpellations" in the Chamber were threatened. The Government of the day was struck with panic. In its extremity, it turned to the man who had been neglected and put on one side, and whose warnings had been disregarded—De Brazza. He was asked to take charge of a Commission of investigation which should proceed at once to the French Congo. He accepted. The decision struck the Boards of the Concessionaire companies with consternation. Immense pressure was at once brought to bear upon the Government, and, repenting of their action almost ere the ink was dry on the letters of appointment, Ministers strove by every means to thwart their own nominee. Only by natural pertinacity and the considerable influence he wielded in certain quarters did De Brazza succeed in securing an official staff and in defeating an attempt to send out another Commission, independent of his own, to spy upon his movements. As it was, he was forced to leave without having been furnished by the Colonial Office with a single one of the dozens of reports from its officials in the French Congo, which had been accumulating in its bureaux for the past four years!

For four months De Brazza and his staff pursued their investigations. De Brazza did not spare himself. His activity was prodigious: his increasing grief pitiful to behold. "Ruin and terror," he wrote home, "have been imported into this unfortunate colony." The river banks were deserted where formerly a numerous population fished and traded. From the Ogowe and its affluents whole tribes had disappeared. Floggings, armed raids, "hostage-houses," had everywhere replaced the peaceful relationship of commercial intercourse. All over the country the wretched natives, goaded into rebellion, were struggling against their oppressors: fleeing to the forests, they subsisted—or starved on—roots and berries. Great numbers had perished. The following specific instances are selected from the mass of evidence. In the Upper Ubanghi the agent of a Concessionaire company