Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/163

 "In January, 1882, we started from our camp,—200 souls in all,―following the road, sixty feet wide, to a region inhabited by the Basonge, on the Sankuru and Lomami Rivers. The huts were about twenty feet square, divided into two compartments, the furniture consisting of cane and wooden stools; floor, ceiling, and walls covered with grass mats. Between the huts were gardens, where tobacco, tomatoes, pine-apples, and bananas were grown. The fields in the rear down to the river were cultivated with sweet-potatoes, ground-nuts, sugar-cane, manioc, and millet. Goats and sheep and fowls in abundance, homestead follows homestead in never-ending succession. From half-past six in the morning, we passed without a break through the street of the town until eleven. When we left it, it then still extended far away to the south-east. The finest specimens in my collection, such as open-work battle-axes inlaid with copper, spears, and neat utensils, I found in this village.

"Four years had gone by, when I once more found myself near this same village. With joy we beheld the broad savannas, where we expected to recruit our strength and provisions. We encamped near the town, and in the morning approached its palm-groves. The paths were no longer clean, no laughter was heard, no sign of welcome greeted us. The silence of death breathes from the palm-trees, tall grass covers every thing, and a few charred poles are the only evidence that man once dwelt there. Bleached skulls by the roadside, and the skeletons of human hands attached to the poles, tell the story. Many women had been carried off. All who resisted were killed. The whole tribe had ceased to exist. The slave-dealer was Sayol, lieutenant of Tippo-Tip."

Sir Samuel Baker was largely instrumental in the suppression of the slave-trade, and, while the rule of the English and French in Egypt was maintained, slavery was greatly diminished; but, since the defeat and death of Gen. Gordon, the slave-trade has rapidly increased, and is now carried on more actively than at any other time. The only obstacles to this traffic are the presence of Emin Pacha at Wadelai, the English and American missionaries, and English trading-stations on trading-stations on Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika.

The slave-traders unite in efforts to destroy Emin Pacha, and to expel the missionaries and all-European travelers and traders, except the Portuguese, and for this purpose excite the hostility