Sacramento daily record-union., 1889-09-28

August, IN which l write, forty-hve thou
sand more victims are being added to the
numbers of those who appeal to US for aid
and protection from some of the foulest
criminals that ever disgraced the earth"
| should willingly spare the reader the
suffering of further acquaintance with the
actual facts of the slave trade, but am
compelled, before closing the evidence, to
recall one long dark passage from Mr..
Stanley's book on the Congo. The stress
OF this question must always lie, not upon
its advocates, but simply on its witnesses,
and the importance of Mr.. Stanley's testi-
mony forms its own apology for the ex-
treme length of the following quotation:
Our guide, Yumbila, was told to oues-
ton them as to what was the cause of this
dismal scene, and an old man stood out
and poured forth his tale of grief and woe
with an exceeding volubility. He told of
a sudden and unexpected invasion of their
village by host of leaping, yelling men
in the darkness, who dinned their ears with
murdeTous fusillades, slaughtering their
people as they sprang out of their burning
huts into the light of the flames. Not a
third of the men had escaped; the larger
number of the women and children had
been captured and taken away, they know
not whittier. We discovered that this
horde of banditti-for in reality and with
out disguise, they were nothing else-was
under the leadership OF several chiefs, but
principally under Karema and KibunCa.
They had started sixteen months previ-
ously from Wane- -Kirundu, about thirty
miles below Vinya Mara. For eleven
months the band bad been raiding success
fully between the Congo and the Lubiranzi,
on the left bank. They had then under
taken to perform the same cruel work be-
On looking at my map, find that such q
territory within the area described would
cover specifically 16 $40 square geogrsph-
ical miles on the left bank and 10 500 miles
on the right, all of which in statute mile
age would be equal to "a 700 square miles,
just 1000 square miles greater than the
island of Ireland, inhabited by about
1000 600 people. The band when it set
out from Kirundu numbered 300 fighting
men, armed with f1int-locks, double e-bar.
relied percussion-guns and a few breech-
leaders. Their followers or domestic slaves
and women doubled this force. Within
the inclosure was series of low sheds ex-
tending many lines deep from the imme-
diate edge of the clay bank inland 100
yards. In length the camp WAS about 800
yards. At the landing place below were
hfty-four long canoes, varying In carrying
SopaSiAy. 1SAS1 iillSut COuNtN Ten 10
100 people. The first general impressions
are that the camp is much too densely
peopled for comfort. There are rows OF
dark nakedness, relieved here and there
blythe white dresses of the captors. There
are lines or groups of naked forms, up
right, standing or moving about listlessiy:
naked bodies are stretched under the
sheds in all positions, naked legs in
Vulnerable are seen in the perspective
of PROSTATE sleepers; there are count
less naked children = many mere
infan,s-forms of boyhood and girlhood.
and occasionally drove of absolutely
naked old women bending under a basket
of fuel, or cassava-tubers, or bananas, who
are driven through the moving groups by
two or three musketeers. On paving more
attention to details, l observed that mostly
all are fettered; youths with iron rings
around their necks, through which chain,
like one of our boat anchor. chains, is rove,
securing the captives by twenties. The
children over ten are secured by these COD.
per rings, each ringed leg brought together
by the central ring which accounts for the
apparent iistlessnessness of movement I
observed on first coming in presence of
this curious scene. The mothers are se-
cured by shorter chains, around whom
their respective progeny of infants are
grouped, hiding the cruel iron links that
fall in loops or festoons on their mammas'
breasts. There is not an adult man captive
among them. The slave traders admit
they have only 2,300 captives in this fold,
yet they have raided through the length
and breadth of a country larger than Ire
land, bringing fire and spreading carnage
with lead and iron. Both banks of the
river show that lis villages and 43 districts
have been devastated, out of which is onlv
educed this scanty profit of 1900 females
and children, and about 1000 tusks of
ivoryl the spears, swords, bows and the
have fallen. Given that 1IS villages
were peopled only by l 900 each, we
have only profit of two per cent, and
by the time all these captiyes have
been subjected to the accidents of the river
voyage to Kirundu and Nyangwee, of camp
life and its harsh miseries, to the havoc of
smallpox, and the pests which miseries
breed, there will only remain a scant one
per cent. upon the bloody venture. They
tell me- however, that the convoys already
arrived at Nyangwee with slaves captured
in the interior have been ss great as their
present band. Five expeditions have come
and gone with their booty of ivory and
slaves, and these five expeditions have now
completely weeded the large territory de-
scribed above. If each expedition has been
as successful as this, the slave traders have
been enabled to obtain 5000 women and
children safe to Nyangwee, Kirundu, and
Vibondo, above the Stanley Falls. This
5000 out of an annual million will be at
the rate of half per cent, or slaves out
of 1000 people. This is poor profit out of
such large waste of life, for originally we
assume the slaves to have mustered about
10000 in number. To obtain 300 slaves
out of the 11S villages they must have shot
a round number of $500 people, while
l 300 men died by the way side through
scant provisions and the intensity of their
hopeless wretchedness. How many are
wounded and die in the forest or droop to
death through en- overwhelming sense of
their calamities we do not know; but if
the above figures are trustworthy, then the
outcome from the territory with its million
of souls is 5000 slaves, obtained at the
cruel expense of $4,000 lives And such
slaves There are females or young chill
dren who cannot run away, or who with
youthful indifference will soon forget the
terrors of their capture Yet each of the
very smallest infants has cost the life of
father, and perhaps his three stout brothers
and three grown-up daughters. An entire
family of six souls have been done to death
to obtain that small, feeble, useless child
These are my thoughts as / look upon the
horrible scene. Every second during which
l regard them the clink of fetters and chains
strikes upon my ears. My eyes catch sight
OF that continual lifting of the hand to ease
the neck in the collar, or as it displays
exposed through muscle being
irritated by its weight or want of fitness.
My nerves are offended with the rancid ef-
huvium of the unwashed herds within this
human kennel. The smell of other abomi-
nations annoys me in that vitiated atmos-
phere. For how could poor people, bound
and riveted together by twenties, do other
wise than wallow in filth? Only the old
women are taken out TO forage. They dig
out the ssava.tubers and search for the
banana; while the guard, with musket
ready, keenly watches for the coming of
the reyengeful native. Not much food can
be procured in this manner, and what is
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