The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-01-15
Photographs From Africa

A lot of photographs taken in tropical
Africa last year are suggestive. Here
ia a busy scene on the wide veranda of a
house on the upper Congo. Two black
fellows are running sewing machines.
A woman sitting tailor fashion on table
is sewing buttons on coats. and other
women are busy with cloth and needle,
They are making clothing for the whites
and uniforms for the black soldiers.
This is a part OF the Government
training school for tailors; and it stands
within stones throw of the place where
hundreds Of canoes were launched upon
the river on the day when the fathers OF
these people, the fierce Bangala canni-
balls, gave STANLEY the hardest fight he
encountered during his long descent OF
the Congo. The twenty-eight years that
have since passed have wrought Won
derful change in this people and their
country. STANLEY called them the
Ashantis Of the Congo but the Bangsla
are now foremost among the natives in
industry and progress.
Another picture shows 200 OF the
Baneala school children drawn up in a
long line, naked TO the waist but wrapped
in cotton skirts that fall TO their ankles.
The women and girls formerly dressed
in the shortest of grass skirts, skilfully
woven by themselves. but scanty even
for ballet dancer. Yards OF cotton
are now used in their attire, which sug-
gests the new markets for cotton fabrics
] -, frtAo
Every white settlement throughout
the Congo State shows the new arts the
natives are learning. They are burning
lime and making millions of bricks. One
picture shows lime kiln OF the most
approved pattern in the remote south
east corner OF the State. Nearly all the
| houses at the stations are built OF brick.
Other pictures show the Government
training schools in carpentry, with black
men saving, planning and hammering;
making door frames, the wooden forms
used to shape the half-oval brick tops
OF windows, and many other specimens
of the carpenters art. Then there is
view Of the school In which young men
are instructed in cabinet making, for
the houses Of the Congo are beginning
to be supplied with furniture OF home
manufacture. On the lower Congo they
are doing their own printing, and the
press room OF the printing house at
Bona is shown with modern cylinder
press. which black men are tending and
! feeding.
Philanthropy 10 prominent in these
pictures. The hospital for natives AZ
/ Bona is said TO be the finest building
but one on the lower Congo. A hundred
or more little waits are shown in front
of the orphan asylum OF the sisters at
Moanda. Another series OF visws. from
German East Africa, shows several hand
some hospitals, surrounded by fine gar
dens OF shrubbery and flower beds.
When STANLEY arrived at Bona, fifty
miles from the mouth OF the Congo in
August. 1877, he found six trading build
ings OF rough boards, engaging the at
tention Of eighteen white men in the
midst Of a dreary, bleak and unpromis-
ing landscape. The Europeans on the
Congo to-day try TO make their surround
ings pleasing to the eye and to secure
all possible comfort. In the older settle
ments the dwellings are surrounded
by an arrangement Of shrubbery, flower
beds and gardens that give pleasant
impression. Every comfort is sought
Tor in the arrangement of the rooms and
the ventilation of the houses.
Nearly all the stations vie with one
another in making the surroundings as
attractive as possible. Nature is so lux
uriant in those attitudes that, with guild
ance and pruning vegetation may be
made 10 soften the asperities Of the
ugliest places. Bona has its public park.