The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-07

this in pal
n the startling accomplishment Of Frank
N. Rapp, young American mining engi-
neer, who recently landed in New York
from his expedition, still shaking with
fever
That the expedition Rapp was on was
not a mere summers excursion into Q
hospitable land is proven by the fact that
the chief engineer and another engineer
Of the mining company which sent the
expedition out were killed by the natives
Both the French and Belgian govern
ments, as a result of the killing, have
sent punitive expeditions into this hither-
TO unexplored country to hunt down the
chief of the tribe who was responsible
for the killing.
The Bachokes Of the great tribe Of the
Bantus is the name of the new tribe that
Mr.. Rapp and his party discovered. 1t IL
all in one the richest, the LATEST, the
most immoral and the most interesting
Of all the tribes of interior Africa To
get to 1t you have to sail up the great
Congo river as far as 1t is possible to
float anything on It and dodge native
bullets which come as thick sometimes as
. dozen to the mile. And after you can
go no farther on the river it is necessary
to hire hundred or so natives and go
walking the rest OF the way Just as the
famous Stanley did so many years ago.
In the meantime you have to be very
careful that other natives do not take q
IN IN ha +hak
they may wish to make soup or hash of
your valuable body.
The country Of these Bashokes is q
plateau about 400 feet in the air. Only
the river valleys are inhabited as the sec
lions between the rivers is but little else
than desert waste. The grass on the
plateau is from eight to fifteen feet high,
while that in the valleys only comes to
the disgustingly low height of four or
i've feet. Here the Bachokes reside and
here too reside some amazingly valuable
diamond ields-iust how valuable and
Just how situated Mr.. Rapp refuses to
say for purely business reasons.
It seems that Mr.. Rapp is about the
only one, with the exception OF the other
members of his party. who knows any,
thing about this Bachoke tribe of the
Bantus. When he came back to Gods
country" and sought from so learned an
institution as the Smithsonian some in
formation about the people whose guest
he had recently been he was surprised
even to dismay to find it knew nothing to
speak of concerning them.
According to Mr.. Rapp the Bachokes
area fairly wealthy tribe as far as wealth
among the African savages goes. They
are wealthy enough. the men are, to sit
around all day and smoke and gossip,
while the women work the fields
AS was the case with many another
modern fortune the wealth of the
Bachokes was founded upon the mis-
fortune and exploitation other fellow
men. The Bachokes were the original
slave traders. They were at the source
Of the evil. Upon them 1t fell to attack
the weaker tribes in the interior of
Africa and to take captive all that they
did not slay or leave dying OF wounds
These prisoners were passed on to the
tribes inhabiting the coast, who, in turn
at the great slave port of st. Paul Loanda
on the west coast sold them to English.
American and other traders for European
and American consumption.
Through their shaving operations the
Bachokes came to roll in wealth It is
Q poor Bachoke indeed who cannot wear
ut least three strings Of blue and red
beads. buy very costly and powerful
spirit medicines from the medicine man.