Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-07-24
WORY.RAlDINC,
Compared with it Stanley Says that Slave.
Trading Becomes Innocence.

Mr.. Stanley, in his long letter to
Col. Euan-Smith, recently published in
England as a parliament paper, gives
narrowing account of the doings of
! the ivory-raiders in Africa. He says:
''Twenty-eight days march from
Fort Bodo brought US once more to
abandoned; the slave-trader and his
hundreds of desperadoes had COM
menced the return home with 500 tusks
of ivory, which had been collected after
| immense waste of life and native prop
efty.
People in England have not the
slightest idea what the present fashion
of ivory-collecting, as adopted by the
Arabs and Zanzibar half-castes west Of
the lake regions, means. Slave-trad-
ing becomes innocence when compared
! with ivory-raiding. The latter has be-
come literally most bloody business.
Bands consisting of from 800 TO 600
Mayema, armed with Enfield carbines
and otficered by Zanzibar Arabs and
Swahili, range over that immense forest
land east of the Upper Congo, destroy
ing every district they discover and
den fusillades into the deepest recesses
of the forest. In the midst of vast
circle described by several days march
in every direction the ivory-raiders
select a locality wherein plantations
are abundant, prepare few acres for
rice. and while the crop is growing
sally out by twenties or torties to de-
stroy every village within the circle
| and to hunt up the miserable natives
who have escaped their first secret and
sudden onslaughts.
They are aware that the forest,
though it furnishes receSseS of bush
impervious to discovery, is a hungry
wilderness outside the plantation grove
of the clearing. and that to sustain life
! the women must forage far and near
for berries. wild fruit, and fungi.
These scattered bands of ivory-hunters
find these women and children an easy
! prey. The startling explosion of
heavily loaded guns in the deep woods
paralyzes the timid creatures, and be-
fore they recover from their deadly
| fright are rushed upon and secured.
By the possession of these captives they
impose upon the tribal communities the
necessity of surrendering every article
Of value. ivory. or goats, to gain the
| liberty of their relatives. Thus the
land becomes thoroughly denuded of
ivory, but unfortunately, also, it be-
! comes wild waste.
THE 600 ivory tusks that Ugar-
rowwa was bearing new to the coast
had been acquired by just such bloody
work relentless destruction of human
| life. and condemnation of the happy
survivors of the tribal communities to
Undesirable miseries. What UGar-
| rowwa had done within his elected cir
Gle Kilonga-Longa has performed with
no less skill, but certainly with a
far greater disregard to the interests of
humanity within his reserve, and the
same cruel, murderous policy was be-
| ing pursued with dozens of other cir
cles into which the region as far south
as Urrpgga. north to the Welle, east to
longitude % degrees and 80 minutes,
| and west to the Congo was parceled
out. In the early parts of the month
! Of August the column overlook the
! immense caravan of Ugarrowwa, his
! iOtilla of tfty-seven canoes laden with
| helpless children, girls and young
women, and his hoard of ivory, equal
! to about fifteen tons, was at the land
| ing-place of a village near Wasp
; Rapids, on the Ituri river.