The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-11-06

the colony have fallen off to such an
extent that it requires careful work to
make ends meet sometimes. Rubber
and ivory are still exported in large
quantities, and cocoanuts cultivated
along the coast.
Firearms are not supposed to be
sold to the natives any more. How
ever, they are at liberty to buy gum
powder for those still in their posses
sion, although bullets are barred.
They get around this by taking steel
nails, wire and various things, cutting
them into bits and using these for bull
let's. You can imagine what happens
when a human or an animal gets a
charge of chopped steel nails in his
hide.
Excel American Indians.
"As archers the African natives ex-
eel the American Indian at his best,
a thing that surprised me, while as
metal workers there is no comparison.
The Africans still use great numbers
of bows and arrows. The latter are
three feet long, very heavy, and fit
ted with the most w~icked-looking
barbs of giant proportions that l ever
saw. If one of those barbs entered a
human, and he survived, it would be
necessary to cut him pretty well to
pieces in order to get the arrows out
of his anatomy. They also use poi
son-tipped arrows, which are fatal to
anything living that they strike.
Some of the finest examples OF
metal working l ever saw are pro.
duced by these natives in their crude
FORCES and with the primitive tools
they make for themselves. Their bat
tleaxes are positive works of art,
heavy, but carefully wrought and skill.
fully finished. Their knives are the
finest steel. They have a strange way
of keeping score with these same axes.
Whenever an ak has done its deadly
work, be it taking a human life or
merely looping off a finger or ampu-
tating an ear by way of emphasis, an
other pair of eyes and another nose
are carved on one of the crossbars.
And when all the available space has
been given over to these CHASTITY re-
minders of bloodshed the AK is cast
aside, another is brought into play
and a new score started
Antelope, hippopotamus, c~rocodiles
and other tropical denizens inhabit the
rivers and the forests, and leopards
are so common as to attract little at
tention.
Bona Is 46 miles up the Congo riv-
er from the coast. Mntadi, 25 miles
further, is the principal seaport From
here inbound cargoes ire transferred
to a railroad running to Stanley Pool,
240 miles distant, beyond the rapids
that prevent navigation. Here the
freight is placed aboard river steam
ers for distribution along the 5000
miles Of navigable waterways that tx
tend into the interior. That short
stretch of railway happens to be one
of the most remunerative enterprises
in Africa in good times. Every pound
passing over the rails-and there is
no other way to travels assessed
heavily.
There are about ITO white residents
in Bona, most Of them Belgian Off
Gals. 1t is not exactly the place one
would select as a health resort. Live
stock cannot exist there, because II
contracts the sleeping sickness,
Beeves are brought down the coast on
sailing vessels, killed as wanted, and
when the stock is exhausted others
are imported, but no attempt is made
at breeding cattle. There being nc
horses, carriages have no place. In.
stead there is a single-wheeled chair
called a p~ush-push, with a native in
front to pull and another at the back
to maintain the equilibrium. Taxi
cab rates are not exorbitant. It is
possible to obtain a push-push and two
natives for six dollars a month, OF
whereabouts.